becoming human, becoming godly

Wow, a lot has changed since I’ve last posted here.  By ‘a lot’, I mean of course that I have changed…a lot.  In the past year or so I have been progressively becoming more human and even, perhaps, in character more so conformed into the image of Jehoshua.  An example: I learned recently that I’m capable of being emotionally moved when observing the suffering of other people.  Call me insensitive, I considered myself broken in some way, but for the first time since I was a boy, I felt a big ball of tears come together way down in my guts and start to work its way up through my chest before I caught it mid-sternum and pushed it all the way back down until it dissipated.   It happened on a road trip while listening to a tragic event dramatized in radio theater.  What happened was significant for me because up to that point, I had already seriously considered the possibility that I was not able and never would be able to emotionally connect with others.  I was beginning to believe that I had been somehow “wired” differently and so did not have the capacity to express emotions like my wife could, for example.  I am certain that what happened on the trip was only a minor culmination of major events and changes that had been building for some time.  It was enough for me to discover at that point that I could feel, but the experience itself was a little bittersweet.  As it was happening, my “Real Men Don’t Cry” complex kicked in and subdued the tears before they made it to the back of my throat.  It seemed to happen so fast, but I can remember observing what was happening inside my body as if I was a third-party.  Sort of an inside-my-body-out-of-body experience.  I was both glad and sad at seeing it; glad to see that I was able to connect (even to a biographical dramatization of all things), but sad to see those tears that could have been be so coldly and systematically exterminated.  Even though I didn’t cry, just knowing that it was there I felt the freedom that the salty expression was bringing with it.  It’s one thing not to cry because you are holding back the tears.  It’s an entirely different thing not to cry because your heart is made of stone.  Observing that I so efficiently dismissed my emotions, I realized two things: first, that I did have emotions – hallelujah! – and second, that I could control their subduing.  What I realized was that for a very long time I had subconsciously subdued my emotions but on that particular day, they made a breakthrough.  They made it so far, so fast that they couldn’t be put away quietly.  Though they were dealt with quickly and effectively, even with mechanical precision such that my visible demeanor never changed, I saw for the first time the cold-hearted mechanism that has been operating undetected for so long.  Having observed all of this and seeing the oppression of what is God’s by a thing which is not of Him, I passed judgment that day as a new creation in Christ against my cold, mechanical member according to the authority I have received over this body of flesh.  No more in my body will it be tolerated that this heart of flesh given by Yehowah should ever be suppressed.  The scripture says that “Jehoshua wept”.  Now I know why, and now I know how, and I now I know…that I’ve been made to do the same.  Hallelujah.

 

-brandon