As Many Time As 70x7

70 x 7

“There’s a grace when the heart is under fire…”

This is a song by Hillsong that has been on my heart since a couple of hours ago. My heart has been under fire, particularly yesterday. I realised that the thing that used to break my heart when I was 15 has the same effect on me, as a 29 year old. Disappointed… because I have journeyed with the Lord for about 13 years and this thing still stings. Confused… because it has been years since I felt this pain and I was under the impression that I am free.

As a 16 year old who is a fresh and zealous Christian, I believed that I would witness my father getting saved.I had been needing him to change his ways before I got saved but after my encounter with Jesus and seeing how He changed my life, I believed that He could do it for him as well. For years I prayed and believed. At some point my dad left our home and went to live with one of his mistresses and after a few months (or weeks, I cannot remember) he was involved in an accident. Nobody visited him in hospital until his cousin who was a cleaner in the ICU unit saw him and came home to tell us. My mother sat my brothers and I down and spoke to us about forgiveness. We forgave, visited him in hospital, welcomed him back at home and my silly heart believed that this was a turning point for him… just like in movies. My disappointment when we learned that things are still the same? We learned to live with it. I finished high school and graduated university and immediately got married… in a happy marriage, I forgot where I came from. Now as a 29 year old learning that ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’, and seeing my mother and brother so broken… I wrestled with the Lord. I am deeply disappointed at how things have remained the same all my life, if not getting worse and even more exasperated that the pain kills me the exact same way it did.

In my quest to bargain with God and question the freedom of salvation and its ‘exclusivity vs inclusivity’... I found myself weeping and tired. I am struggling to reconcile years of what currently feels like wasted prayers, but the Lord is gracious… even to those we don’t want to extend grace to. As I am writing this, He took me through things that I keep doing and that He keeps forgiving me for. Now, I am not Lord and Saviour and certainly do not have a big heart to make room for humanity’s premeditated imperfections, but I have God’s spirit.

And so his spirit in me says…

70x7

70x7

70x7

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with me. May He teach me how to imitate Him. May I learn how to forgive others as He has also forgiven my tresspasses.

To Him who is able to keep me from stumbling, be glory and honour and adoration… forever and ever amen.