Spoken 1: Gardening Tools

I carry this tiny little dagger in my heart.  Ummm...  I'm really tempted to re-write that.  I mean, it's really, really, really tiny.  Microscopic.  Smaller than microscopic.  And it's not really a dagger.  It's not very sharp at all.  It's like a little round thing.  It isn't exactly soft - but it's not pokey.  Like a little BB.  Well... that doesn't make it any better, does it?  It's still a weapon.

All those just-friends boys who were really just-friends.  All those guys who told me I would be a great wife someday but didn't want me as their wife.  All the guys who didn't choose me.

Yikes.  I'm really ashamed by that.  And the longer the list gets, my BB turns back into the dagger of bitterness it really is.  Oh, LORD, have mercy on me.  I look at the heartache I've carried... I look at the mean things people have said and done and I need your healing.

And somewhere from a hill half a world away, I hear these words.

Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do.

And I have to stop.  The faces of the guys who disappointed me.  That vision is nothing.  Who am I that every knee should bow?  That the wonderful things I do and am should be honored at all times?  I am not the Messiah.  I am not the perfect lamb.  I was the one who deserved the Cross.  Not Jesus.

And yet, Jesus asks God to forgive the people who were killing Him.  They don't understand.  They don't get it.  They have no clue.

And so, when I think back to the men who didn't give me a second glance, or who didn't fall head-over-heals, how can I hold any bitterness when I think of Jesus?  He didn't condemn them... He desired that they would be forgiven.

My weapons of bitterness - my BBs and my daggers- do no good.  They promise protection, but I'm the one they are hurting the most.  And although he is gracious, I know my husband feels the side effects. Isaiah 2:4 tells of a time when weapons will be melted into gardening tools.  And I'm asking God to do that in my life.  I'm tired of this war.  I'd rather have a garden.