Forgiveness and completion

I found it almost funny that my devotion this morning was about forgiveness. It was called the difference between the power of prayer and the power of God, but for me, it was about forgiveness. The scripture that states:

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” 

I think sometimes we really do work hard at forgiving. Sometimes it's because of scriptures like this one, sometimes it's because we get tired of drinking the poison and waiting for the other person to die. Whatever our reason, we know that it's wrong, no matter how we try to justify it. I mean seriously, don't you want God to forgive your sins?!? 

This is where I found myself this morning, needing to forgive, yet again! The bishop is speaking to my parents church today and you don't know how badly I want to go up there and give him a piece of my mind. (Well, some of you do.) Instead, here I sit, talking to God and writing to you. That's when I found this:

CLOSURE or COMPLETION

Due to the current overlay of therapy terminology in our language, everyone now seems to wish for "closure." This word is unfortunate; it is not faithful to the open-ended rhythm of experience. Creatures made of clay with porous skin and porous minds are quite incapable of the hermetic sealing that the strategy of "closure" seems to imply. 

The word “completion” is a truer word. Each experience has within it a dynamic of unfolding and a narrative of emergence. Oscar Wilde once said, "The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realized is right." When a person manages to trust experience and be open to it, the experience finds its own way to realization. Though such an ending may be awkward and painful, there is a sense of wholesomeness and authenticity about it. Then the heart will gradually find that this stage has run its course and the ending is substantial and true. Eventually the person emerges with a deeper sense of freedom, certainty, and integration. 

~ John O'Donohue

I am at a place of completion. 

It's that simple really and yet that hard. When I left this state in 1986, it was something that I had wanted to do since I was in High School. I spent the next 20 years wanting to go home, back to Arkansas. Being back here has been awesome, awkward, full of laughs and full of pain... it has been part of my life. I have been open to the experiences and as real as I know how to be. This chapter is done, this part of the play has run it's course and the ending is true for me. There need not be closure just completion.

There is sadness in leaving again, but this time around I have Jesus with me in a whole different way. In having that new way with Jesus, I also have new hope. 

As it was said with such style years ago by the great MC Hammer:U Cant Touch This