blessed are the peacemakers

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You have heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:43-45

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15:4

the past month has been so strange and painful and also sprinkled with vignettes of God's attentiveness towards me. i have a difficult time recalling what my spiritual walk has looked like for the past year; i remember being distraught one time in february 2014 as i hurt from a conversation on the phone, struggling to get through my ethnic studies thesis in the spring, grappling with my draining internship over the summer, feeling uplifted by the students i led at a summer camp, feeling rest-less going into fall quarter, drowning in grief from september through december as i sought counseling and sat in the midst of a dead relationships, and feeling hopeless, ashamed, and self-condemned all of january. why is it that i desired reconciliation and healing and life so much for the past year and a half? why is it that out of my own strength and efforts i felt as if i was repeatedly ramming my head into a concrete wall? as the pain of unfulfilled hopes and desires sat in the chambers of my withering  and writhing heart, i had begun to give increasing attention to that pain until i was feverish with obsession and until all that was inside was the sticky darkness of hopelessness. reconciliation and life was out of my reach and it was all that i desired. i made every effort to avoid going to fellowship and every prayer i could muster started with "i don't know how to commune with you anymore."

this particular arch of my life has been threaded into the greater story of God's work in my heart in such a methodically hidden way that all i feel is the pain of the sanctification. it came to a point in january when e asked me, "do you feel like jesus loves you right now?" and "do you love jesus?" to which i responded "no" and "i don't know." i didn't realize it was possible to reorient my identity around a conditional "i am worthy only if i can successfully pursue reconciliation." and because i failed, and i failed so hard, i naturally and logically became unworthy and unloved.

i cried out to God that week and in the following month, things have happened at a pace faster than i was used to. these vignettes come in the form of an email i've been anticipating for almost six months; a twelve minute facetime and several phone calls home; a painful situation that has caused me to feel homeless and has forced me to my knees in desperate prayer and dependence upon jesus; the sweetness of walking with e and seeing how god has used each others' prayers to draw us back to jesus; the sweetness of my friendships with a handful of sisters who love me well and lift me and carry me in prayer.

things i have been learning:
1) my desire for reconciliation and peace and life-giving relationships is such that it tears me apart when i cannot have it; i do not know what this says about me, but it seems to me that at the very least it says that God, as a peace-making God, has placed this within me and calls me to lean on him as he is the sole active outworker of this peace
2) blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who mourn. i am not happy when i mourn or when there is discord but jesus sees me and turns towards me.