A Taste of What Lies Ahead

Sparkie and I had a conversation this morning. It went something like this.

Sparkie: *rolls over* Woof?
Me: *starts to tickle his tummy* I'm. SO. MAD.
Sparkie: *big brown eyes*
Me: I don't NEED this on top of everything else!
Sparkie: Woof.
Me: I don't like loving people. It hurts.
Sparkie: *puts paw on my cheek and closes eyes*

A quiet voice in my heart: But love is forgiving. Seventy times seven.
Me: I don't care! I care about someone and THIS is what happens!
Voice: They forgave you.
Me: But it was easier for them to forgive me! I have a RIGHT to be mad!
Voice: Since when did you have rights? Love has no right. Love lays itself down daily and sacrifices all. It loves where there is no love. It forgives to the death. It has NO RIGHTS.

When you learn to follow Jesus, you surrender all to Him. Your life. Your ways. Your thoughts. Your choices. Your actions. Your will. And your rights.
Rights has to be one of the hardest things to go. The human will is forever standing up for itself.
Yet where were the rights of the Lord God Creator? He made Himself infinitely finite, took on the fallen form of His creation, was born in questionable circumstances (in the world's eyes), was persecuted from birth, had no place to live during the whole of His ministry, was questioned, doubted and jeered at by His close friends and family, was betrayed by one of His closest friends, was held up to scorn, tortured, and finally had Almighty God turn His face from Him as He took on the sins of the whole world.
Don't all the good things we keep talking about seem pitifully few in His life compared to that?

Gulp. I turn and look back at my own pitiful little cross. I remember that I told God I was willing to take what He meted out if He would make me willing, and able. I remember the extent of the crimes for which He forgave me.
And I look at what I was wailing about.
Um...maybe it wasn't that big after all. At least, not in the eternal scheme of things.

So bend down, lift the twig of a beam, lay it on my shoulder, look up to the Lord and ask for help to carry even this mere crumb of a fragment of His cross, because my flesh and humanity can't do it alone.

I will forgive. And love still. Because I've been forgiven. Because I've been loved. Because He forgave me. And because He loved me when I hated Him.