Life Matters Blog
February Blog Post
By Casandra Orsburn
Let me tell you what. I really tried to overcomplicate this month and come up with
something profound. The good Lord knows that I sometimes just need to keep it simple,
like myself. Since it is February, the month of “Love”, I thought what better to talk about
than the love of our Lord and Savior. Though honestly, though it is simple, it is actually
quite profound.
I get a little choked up when I begin to think of the extravagant love of God. The
love that held Jesus to a cross as he looked upon the very people he had come to
rescue now with hate blazing in their eyes and spewing from their lips. Crying out to
God, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” It just breaks my
heart.
This scene, (well, the Mel Gibson-directed Passion of the Christ version of this
scene), plays over in my head. How do you love like that? How do you lay your own life
down so that someone else may have a chance at theirs? And not even a good
someone! This someone is rotten, egotistical, selfish, backslidden, prideful, and a whole
list of other unpleasant things…this someone is me. And it is you. And it is the person
serving his prison sentence for a heinous crime. It is the mother who has lost her
children to her own very poor choices. It is the man who drinks himself to sleep every
night just so he can get a respite from the voices that remind him of all that he’s lost. It
is the person halfway around the world fueled with rage at those who do not look and
think, and worship like him. He died for us all while we were yet sinners.
I will never forget the time that I prayed for God to give me his heart. “Break my
heart for what breaks yours,” I cried out in my car during a particularly emotional
morning. I should not have done that in that setting because I was immediately flooded
with such empathy and compassion, not for someone that I had never met. No, it was
for someone who had made my life hell.
I have mentioned that my husband had children before me. He and his previous
wife had three beautiful daughters together. I was so excited to be a step-mom and
enjoy all the girl dates and mani-pedis we could get. It was going to be wonderful! But,
as divorces and blended families often are, things got messy. I won’t go into all the
details, but she and I were not great friends. I am not a person to get easily angered but
this woman could bring me from 0-60 in 2 seconds flat, my blood pressure boiling out of
my ears!
But it was during that morning commute that the Holy Spirit broke my heart for
her. It literally felt like it was being split wide open as this flood of understanding rushed
in and where I had judged and pointed a finger, now I saw all the hurt and pain and
confusion that was under the surface. God had shown me what was beneath that tough
facade that she liked to taunt me with. She was scared and she was fragile and she
needed Jesus just as much as I needed him. I saw her as a mother who had lost
everything, a woman who wasn’t quite sure who she was anymore. Oh, how I wished
God had shown me anyone else as I wept those bitter tears.
I have never been able to harbor the kind of animosity that I once did. She tried
to make me, for sure. She was not aware of what God had done in my heart, but I could
not forget. I have found myself praying for her, rejoicing when I hear of positive
progress. One day, she even called me to have me pray for someone else because she
didn’t know where else to turn. God is that good, y’all.
And that is love. Love for the broken and the lost. Love for the ones who hold
tightly to the rules and the ones who try to break every one. He loves us all. And we are
called to do the same. 1 John 4:7 says “Dear friends, let us continue to love one
another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.”
Is there someone in your life that you have a hard time loving? I pray you to ask the
Holy Spirit to give you a new heart and fresh eyes, to see them the way that he does.
Break our hearts, Lord, for what breaks yours.
You are SO LOVED!