I find out a distant cousin
Is moving to town
To attend medical school
And become a heart surgeon
I go to congratulate him
Only to discover
He is moving here
By himself
Because he split up with his wife
He is very devout
So in addition to the usual agony
There is an enormous amount of shame
I am filled
With a sudden
Terrible
Empathy
I look him in the eye
And speak
Maybe even prophecy:
This make not make any sense to you
But right now
It feels like your heart
Is being ripped out of your chest
Everything you thought you knew
About yourself
About her
About God
Feels like a lie
You don’t know what to believe
What to feel
What to think
What to hope for
I know
I’ve been there
But this
Is what God
Wants you to know
This is not
At The End
This is
In The Beginning!
God
Loves you
The real you
Not the religious you
Or the cultural you
Or the professional you
He is fond of those
But more than willing
Eager
To put those to death
So the real you can thrive
Because
Only that real you
Has the capacity
For the true intimacy
Your heart longs for
Because
Only that real you
Has the capacity
For the true intimacy
Your heart longs for
And your spouse longed for
But did not find in you
That
Is not your fault
She suffers
From the same curse
You do
That all Adam’s children do
The Knowledge of Good and Evil
Thinking
We know right from wrong
Are competent
To be God
Or at least understand God
Well enough to judge Him
And others
We need that
To survive
In the modern world
But it is killing us
Dividing us
Isolating us
Divorcing us
We cannot go back
To the garden
Of innocence
We can only go forward
To the cross
Of redemption
You do not understand
Why it has to hurt so much
Why God would rip out of your life
Something so precious
So vital
So good
But that is because
Our human eyes
Cannot see the cancer
That was eating you up
From the inside out
But that is because
Our human eyes
Cannot see the cancer
That was eating you up
From the inside out
God
In His infinite kindness
And relentless love
Did
What had to be done
He removed
Your heart of stone
So He could give you
A heart of flesh
The only way out
Is through
The first reward
Is discovering
What it feels like
To be loved by God
The second reward
Is learning
What it feels like
To love yourself that way
Not
The childish way
You used to
The third reward
Is realizing
What it means
To love like Christ does
By loving Him
The way He loves you
That
Is the only thing
I can promise
But…
Sometimes
There is a fourth reward
Where we learn
How to love
Someone else
Long enough
Hard enough
Deep enough
To break the curse
Their curse
Our curse
My curse
Enough for them
To receive that kind of love
From us
From God
And give it back to us
Radically Happy 
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