Shape My Heart

I'm realizing a lot about myself in this first semester of nursing school:

1. I tend to move at a fast-pace, always multitasking.

This can be a good quality. I am driven and purposeful in nearly all that I do, and as a result, can get a lot accomplished. This leads me to believe that I would thrive most as a nurse in a high-intensity setting (maybe the ER?). The downside though, is that sometimes my "go-go-go" lifestyle, makes it easy to miss people.

And after all, they are the point right? I could accomplish a whole bunch of really good goals, but without taking the time to really love people, then what good is that?

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing" (1 Corinithians 13:1-3).

2. I like to fix things.

Once again, this can be a really good quality, I am not content to just let things sit. I am not usually the friend you come to, just to vent or whine about something without intending to do something to change your situation. In fact, I saw this side of me flare up a lot while I was in the Long Term Care setting. A lot of the people there, were seeking end-of-life care and truly just needed physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort in their last days. But then were the other people. Those who had simply decided, "well, it's all downhill from here, so I'm just going to give up and stop trying." It was depressing and extremely frustrating at times. There were moments when I literally wanted to look some of them in the eye and say, "Hey! You are 70 years old. Your life is not over yet. If you go to physical therapy, exercise, eat well, and really try to get better, you probably could have another 10-15 years of quality life!" It's hard to just keep providing the physical immediate needs over and over and over again, when you know that there could be so much more! This is a lot of why I became a nurse in the first place, to help people get better. Maybe that doesn't always mean physically better, but my desire is to always inspire change.

One macro problem with this. I cannot change anyone. Only Jesus saves. I cannot forget this, because the minute I do, is the minute my ministry and effectiveness ends, and I wind up burn-out and completely empty.

3. I value my opinion much too highly.

I think that being a leader in high school ministry for so long, has had a tremendously good impact on my life, but in some ways, has also brought a lot of my ugliness to the surface. When a high schooler comes to me with questions, I listen and hear their heart, and then naturally share opinions and advice from my own life and from the truth of God's word.

It is so good for me to hold back all of my opinions in a clinical setting, and just sit and listen. Ultimately, I am not the Holy Spirit.

Human Sexuality Part 1: "The Intended"

Creation.

The word, the Logos, of God and suddenly there is something from nothing.

Light. Sky. Land. Vegetation. Sun and moon. Animals.

"And He saw that it was good."

Then He kneels in the dirt and from the dust, forms man with His very hands. Forms him in His own image and then breathes into him, the Spirit of life. He is placed in the garden as a steward to work and care for the land.

"And He saw that it was good."

Then here comes the turning point. Suddenly the Lord says, “It is not good..."
"It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

The word for “helper” here in the Hebrew, ezer kenegdo, has been misused and misinterpreted in many contexts over centuries. The real meaning here is simply, “counterpart.” This suggests that the man was not complete in and of himself, but was missing something. From here, the man is placed into a deep sleep and God creates the woman from the very flesh and bone of the man. As Adam awakens and for the first time beholds the beautiful sight of the woman, his immediate response is to sing.

“Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…”

So when God says, “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh,” it was a very literal statement. The uniting of a man and a woman to become “one flesh” in marriage, is returning to the very beginning, when God literally created the woman from the man’s flesh. They were made to be one.

Bashar Echad. אחד בשר

One flesh.

Not only that, but in this little phrase, God was also making a profound statement about their relationship with Him, not just each other. The word, Echad, in Hebrew is also found in the Hebrew Shema, repeated by all young Jewish boys in schooling. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one (Echad).” So, what God was also saying when he declared, “and they shall become one flesh,” was that the man and the woman would become one, just as God is one. That as they grow in holy intimacy with each other, they also grow in intimacy with their creator.

This concept is explored more thoroughly throughout the entirety of the New Testament as Jesus’ love for the church is metaphorically compared to the love between a bride and a bridegroom. In Ephesians, Paul addresses husbands by charging them, “ love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Eph. 5:25-27). As can be assumed by the context, the Greek word for love in this passage is “agape.” This word is all over the New Testament but most often in the context of God’s love for his people. It is a sacrificial, unconditional love. So, the husband is supposed to love his wife, “agape” her, like God “agapes” the world. The husband’s love for his wife is meant to reflect Christ’s love, which sacrificed itself in order to make the church holy, to cleanse her, to wash her with “water through the word.” All of this detailed language gives a visual image of the husband’s “agape” love bringing life, beauty, holiness, even youth to his wife. As the woman submits herself to and respects her husband, affirming him in the man that he is meant to be, his love in a sense causes her to open up like a flower and be the woman she is meant to be. What is more astounding is what can be assumed by these words. The wife submits to and respects the husband’s God-given authority because she knows that in all of his actions, he puts her life ahead of his own.

The man and the woman were created with different roles, but they are the “fullness” of each other, just as the church is the “fullness” of Christ (Eph.1:23).

So much is wrapped up in those two little words. “One flesh.”

The next verse, in Genesis chapter 2 is even more profound. Though it is often overlooked, I believe that it is the key to understanding God’s intended purpose for human sexuality.

“The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (2:25).

I think that this is it—this is what the entirety of mankind is desperately seeking: to stand before someone, completely naked in more than just the physical sense, with all of their flaws and inconsistencies exposed, and feel no shame.

Is this an underlying reason for the change in our culture's view on sexuality? Girls begin to wear less and less in an attempt to reach this desire for complete exposure and no shame. Are the basest most explicitly sexual pieces of our culture a reflection of this God-give desire for the intended relationship? I would argue yes, that a lot of what I see on billboards, in movies, in magazines, is the world crying out for this "one-flesh-naked-with-no-shame" relationship. There is an internal even subconscious recognition of how the relationship between a man and a woman is supposed to be, but at the same time there exists a deep brokenness and understanding in the world that all of this is twisted,

distorted,

fractured.

It is a result of the story which comes next in the Genesis narrative.