the secret gift...

i broke my own heart this week,
i saw my selfishness,
i saw my need to control,
i saw how little compassion i have when i have no personal experience,
that if something is either black or white to me,
i have a hard time consoling the person who sees grey

and then i found myself in the terrible fog of grey
and i made a choice to end a life

and then the absoluteness of it hit me
and i tried to go back, to change my mind
but somethings cannot be undone
some choices are final
and then you have a new choice
live in the pain of regret
or
accept the grace that is offered

i accepted the grace, tho begrudgingly at first
and i found the strength to move forward
and i found compassion for those people who see the grey,
as i stood face to face with my own judgement
i saw plainly the mote in my own eye
i felt the vicious bite of my own judgement
the bitter disappointment at my hasty and selfish decision...

i know that every person has their own story
and i am realizing that i don't always see all of it
and compassion is a better response than judgment
and forgiveness reaches farther than accusation
and prayer is more important than confrontation
and love trumps them all.

and seeing all i learned i thought i understood why...
why did this happen?
why didn't i think it through better?
why did i make a choice i never ever thought i would make?
all these things i can see answers for,

but one thought lingered...
why, once i realised my mistake, and tried so quickly to change it, why was i too late?
i know that God can alter circumstances, that there could have been a delay, that a phone rings, or an emergency occurs, and just like in the movies, all is well at the very last second, and happily ever after for all...

so why not this time?
if the Lord knew that i would change my mind, that i would see through the grey to my beloved black and white so quickly then why not hold out for that decision?

that is the secret gift,
the thing i could not have known,
that in His wisdom, what happened was supposed to happen,

exactly as it had,

that the God who knows me so much more than i know myself
let me learn the lesson i needed desperately to learn
and in doing so saved me from a much bigger and much deeper grief

i should have known that i could trust Him, that He above all others, can bring life out of death,
can save the ones i love, even when my black and white personality would fight Him and His great compassion.

His GREAT compassion

i want more than anything to know that great compassion
and i want more than anything to share it with others

i had lost sight of the heart of God

and i am so relieved to be back in the arms of my savior

and to really see *even just a glimpse* of the power of love.