The Lord has promised and is faithful to heal me and cleanse me of my idolatry in total, and that’s been the amazing result of this whole process of separation I’ve been walking out. He is to be my first Love, above all else, and every yes to Him is a no to me – a letting go of someone or something that I love more than Him. And every letting go that I say yes to (no matter how ugly the process to bow my will!) is rewarded with a deeper seeing of Jesus and an outpouring of His unfathomable Love.
I had no idea how clean I would feel in separating from those I love most in this world. It feels like the clean, weightless, Light that comes after repentance when you know you’re forgiven. I asked Martha about that: is the work of separation a work of forgiveness, since they’re both about letting go? She said that separation is an act of acceptance in God and that’s an act of forgiveness – letting God have all of it. And that’s when I realized that through this work, I am meeting Christ as I never have before.
It is RARE to be loved without expectation or demand, and just as rare to love without expectation or demand. Only God loves like that, so only His love in and through me or someone else has that level of purity. There are no contracts involved – “If you love me like this, then I’ll love you like that.” We’re all selfish to the core, it’s just varying degrees of narcissism. But every new separation He asks of me results in more of HIM – His life, His joy, His LOVE!
And Jesus is worth every agony. I am, in truth, less alone the more I separate. He is more beautiful and present with every unclenching of my grasping hands. His love flows ever more freely into me and through me. Until I separated from them, I couldn’t love my family. I can actually see my family, ever more clearly now that they are slowly being freed from the tangled webs I cast over them. They are beautiful and God loves them, and I get to experience ever more of His absolute joy in my family because of the work of separation.
So, the agony of separation is real, as is the suffering. But that’s not the end. The gift of Christ’s love and life expanding into and filling every void my fallen idols leave is the story.
I am loved beyond the telling of it.
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