I have often thought of myself as someone who is forward thinking and does not spend huge amounts of time looking back. Looking back can cause nostalgia which is not bad unless you live the entirety of your life wishing you could relive past experiences. Forward thinking people are always looking at how past experiences will shape their future. This is how I have tried to view my life experience, as limited as it may be at 28 years old. The things that have happened in my life up to this point should help propel me into the person that I am daily becoming.
Often when people look at their lives they tend to view their personal experience two ways: Resentment or celebration. We celebrate the day we were born or an anniversary because those life experiences caused joy. We tend to resent the moment where we lost a job or where we got into a car wreck because these moments caused pain.
So, today, this week, and really for the last four years, I have been asking myself a question. What do we do with death? Is it a celebration or resentment moment?
Four years ago, this weekend, my brother died. I have literally been in a fire that consumed my body, and yet the pain that I felt when my brother died went far beyond that day in the fire. I never wanted to be the person who wrote publicly about my brothers death because I didn't want that attention on myself. But the past year has shaped how I am perceiving this moment in my life and I must share.
Did you know that resentment will harden your heart. If you resent your neighbor because of a wrong they caused, your heart will be hardened and forgiveness will never be a reality. If you resent your boss your heart will be hardened to him as he leads. If you resent people who resent you then reconciliation will never happen. If you resent Jesus then peace will not take place.
I did not realize until this year how much I resented my brother dying. And in my shame it has caused my heart to remain in a place of brokenness that I have, until this moment, been unable to speak of. I have blamed God for so much and have not understood how it has effected every aspect of my life. My unwillingness to move beyond feelings of resentment have caused my heart to harden in ways that I am only now becoming aware.
See, resentment causes us to cling to our failures and disappointments. It causes shame. It causes pain. It causes us to say things like, "I should have done more." Or, "What if I had done 'this' differently? Then maybe it would be different now." And let me say with confidence and truth...resentment is not from God.
I didn't realize until this year that resentment is from Satan. And he is a master at using it to hold our hearts captive to the pain it causes.
But I have heard a sound, coming on the wind. Changing hearts and minds. Healing brokenness. And his name is Jesus.
Did you know there is a power greater than death? You thought that death was the thing that halts everything didn't you? Not true. There is a power that death cannot stop.
I am a life long believer in Jesus and I am only now beginning to comprehend the power of his Resurrection. Did you know that Jesus' resurrection gives us the freedom to look at our lives through the lens of Celebration? Its true! We no longer have to look at our story with resentment and pain. I am finally freed from the resentment my heart has been clinging to since my brother died. You wanna know why? Because there will come a day when I will get to see him again. And that is something to celebrate.
Three years ago Laura and I chose that when the anniversary of James' death came around we were going to celebrate his life rather than mourn his death. Every year this day would come and go without much celebration. Certainly we would talk about James. We would make ourselves feel like we were celebrating his memory. But my heart wouldn't allow me to fully celebrate. I was only able to fake celebration.
But here we are...just days away from that day that has been etched in our hearts. And I am finally free. Finally ready to celebrate the difficult, messy, strange, beautiful and crazy life my brother lived. See, I don't have to sugar coat his life. There were ugly moments. And there were unbelievably beautiful moments. But never again will I let this day scar my heart. The brokenness I felt is being pieced back together because I have a savior who has conquered the thing I feared the most. Death no longer has a victory in my life. Death no longer carries a sting. And that is something to celebrate!
