Sparky

One of the biggest lessons—or things or ideas or whatever you would want to call it—that God has been teaching me for these past two years through my time in Thailand is the complexity & the fervency of His love for me. I'm of the understanding that we, as human beings, typically take the love of God for granted & perhaps we really don't comprehend what our Creator is doing with us all the time. Slowly, and bit by bit, I've started to come to a greater understanding of this thing called "love" and of the Supreme Being who defines Himself as the very same concept.

Now, surely there are many ways that God could teach people—even me—about how He loves: He could shower us with blessings; He could have a divine symphony composed for us & display it in dazzling splendour in the skies, making the brilliant display of stars look not much more extravagant than a paltry pauper's burlap bed sheets. He could even reveal the pervasive truth of His love in the scriptures, making the concepts & the instances of His undying, unconditional love so apparent that even a preschooler could have a complete understanding; or He could manifest Himself in physical form(s) declaring & displaying His love for us in concrete ways. Instead, for me to come to the deeper realisation of His love, God gave me a student. Her Thai nickname loosely translates to "Sparkles;" in this blog entry, I'll refer to her as Sparky.

Sparky isn't really your average high school student. Granted, she does many of the same things as your typical teenager: hanging out with friends on the school grounds before & after school, doodling on paper or desks or whiteboards, living online in social community websites like Facebook & Hi5 and chatting up a storm on MSN or listening to music on her MP3 mobile phone. What makes her different from most, though, is that she's a dedicated student. Rarely would she ever complain about homework assignments all the while her classmates burst into a cacophony of moans and groans resembling "too much" (as if 12-18 questions are too much!). And every day, you could count on her bright eyes & warm smile to greet you as she slid into your classroom, glad to see you & anxious to grow/know. In all honesty, it was her warm, enthusiastic demeanour and a similar attitude from one of her close friends (his name loosely translates to "Little Fish") that kept me from losing my mind & capitulating to the negative/hostile teaching environment that I had found myself in last year.

Because of her warm demeanour & her eagerness to learn, we formed a pretty good bond by the end of my first year of teaching. We'd hang out & talk after school, and when there were social crises in her life, she'd come to me to talk about them for support & advice. I had never known someone who had ever been so delighted to see me even after a separation of less than 24 hours—and it still blows my mind to this day that someone could ever be so excited at my presence. Earlier this year, before I left to return to Canada for the summer, she told me that she considered me her big brother & that it was nice to have someone like that in her life (as she's the oldest in her family).

Man, it is an amazing feeling to know that you are missed, and to know that you are appreciated, liked, looked up to, trusted and leaned upon. The fullness & the satisfaction that such a position brings just make one's heart sing with joy. I can totally understand why God desires our love & our attention: because love & attention is awesome!

Of course, things rarely ever stay the same. Relationships are dynamic, and many factors play into how one person interacts with another. By July of this year, the second month of our school year, I came to realise that I had grown a genuine love for Sparky—not the "in love" love: the type of love that a father or a guardian or big brother or something like that would feel toward the person they were caring & looking out for. Perhaps this was my first taste of what bona fide {agape} love is like. I mean, I know how friends love friends in community & I can begin to comprehend the complexities & intricacies of spousal love, but I don't think I have ever really understood or even experienced true "brotherly love" in its fullness before this year. It's a type of love that is deeply seated in one's soul, where the other's good is longed for and where a desire to support, uplift & develop the other—regardless of the personal cost—supersedes all other motivations: a love that persists & pervades whether the other chooses to reciprocate or not. It is a powerful perspective, resilient and resistant to environmental conditions that would seek its decline. And for the first time in my life, I understood. I began to realise that how I approached Sparky in my position of love could very well be a decent approximation of how God approaches and loves me.

Indeed, relationships are dynamic. I enjoyed a high level of reciprocation from Sparky for a good long time until a boy came into her life. It seems—and probably rightly so—that her romantic interests consume more of her attention & time than do her non-romantic ones (which is quite in keeping with Gen 2:24). I genuinely missed hanging out with her & all the time we spent together, but I also knew that such decrease was an inevitable part of life. I learned what it felt like to "let go" and still love from a distance. She still felt the same way toward me: she still valued me & looked to me for support, but there was someone else now in her life that was providing her something that I could not supply.

I can't but help wanting to draw a parallel between our relationship with God in heaven and our own personal desires to be in intimate relationships with members of the opposite sex. Now, I'm not implying that I really know the full extent of how God loves us, nor do I begin to suppose that I act just like God does in my personal relationships (Ha! If I could only ever come close to a shadow of what He is like, I would consider myself to have arrived). Nonetheless, I have come to a deeper understanding of how intricate & complex God's love for us truly must be: if I still loved Sparky from the depths of my soul & missed her as she grew in a different kind of relationship with somebody else, I can begin to understand a little bit better why God created Adam alone in the Garden at the beginning & I can begin to understand why Jesus refers to the related concept in Mat 19:11-12 and why Paul echoes this in I Cor. 7. Love thrives in intimacy & it thrives in closeness, but the condition of the human being requires differentiated relationships, each of which satisfies different aspects of the complexity that is love.

Did God want Adam to be in relationship with Him and Him alone? Probably; but being his Creator, he knew that "it [was] not good for man to be alone," and here we witness God's first sacrifice for humanity—the provision of 'space' in the God/Man relationship so that human intimacy & human community could develop. Did it suck for God? I'll be so bold as to assert a strong "most likely." Who likes to let the people that they love spend more time away from them? I mean, really!

As Sparky's relationship developed with her newfound beau, a distance grew between us... But it didn't really stop growing, and this distancing in relationships wasn't isolated only to me: her other close friends soon began to feel alienated, "left behind," and as a result, hurt. It occurred to me in this point of our relationship that, perhaps God feels the same way when we forget to pay Him any attention. Perhaps the Lord of love feels hurt & neglected when we tromp about in our busy lives, choosing to meet & interact with others, choosing to spend that extra bit of more time at work or at the mall or at the beach instead of meeting one-on-one with Him to talk and catch up on things and—truly—to maintain that beautiful relationship that He desires to have with us.

One day, in the midst of this phase, Sparky was feeling the effects of the filial alienation rather acutely, as it seemed that her closest friends were now giving her "the cold shoulder." After letting her talk to me about it for a good while, she recognised what was happening & admitted that she herself missed spending time with those others who were important in her life. Sparky was presented with the concept & the need of socio-relational balance. In fact, she admitted to recognising this quandary a week previous & had begun to address the situation, but she was just surprised at the extent to which some of her friends felt left out or cut off. I'm glad to say that since then, her relationships have mostly righted themselves & restoration has led to progressing development.

One day a few weeks ago, I was asked to be party in a cover-up. As we were waiting to meet her mother at a grocery store after watching a movie that afternoon, Sparky turned to me & asked if I would tell her mother that I had invited her beau to come along with them that afternoon (which, alas, I did not, and which, alas, gave me a hint at the notion that perhaps Sparky's parents didn't approve of her relationship with said boy). I had to let her down. I apologised & told her that I could not lie for her. As a result, her mother discovered the boy's presence. Sparky knew that she had disappointed her mother, which, in turn, made her feel crappy.

Now, Sparky knows that I would quite literally lay down my life for her, and I think that maybe from that knowledge came her request for me to participate in the cover-up. I'm not exactly sure, but I could imagine that because of my answer, she may have felt let-down. Often, there have been times in my life when I have asked God for certain things to benefit me or to improve my quality of living (at least from my perspective) & quite often, the Lord refuses my requests. There have been times in my life where this has seriously caused me much distress and pain in my relationship with Him: God allowing my best friend's father to die of cancer last year, for example, even though I know full well that He could have wiped the disease clean away from the man's body in a second. Other times, the refusal of my request causes me less duress, but there still remains a touch of frustration: finding a suitable female tends to be my most often denied request. I guarantee you, though, that it still produces frustration in my soul :).

Does God want to hurt me? Does he desire to see me frustrated & upset? Probably (I'd bet it's more like "definitely") less even than I desire to see Sparky unhappy, hurt or upset. Quite honestly, I hurt when she hurts: it's a unique situation in my life as, to date, no other person's emotional state causes my own to resonate with this type of intensity. Consequently, having a Father who "likes to give [us] good gifts," I would imagine that He is similarly moved when His good gifts result in our momentary disappointment, frustration or upset.

A situation has happened in the recent past which has created a strain in relationship with Sparky. There was a direct trespass of stated boundaries during one of the school's activities, which put me in the position of having to work with the school's administration to implement disciplinary measures. What's worse is that I was the first authority to be made aware of the transgression, and as such, I was involved in "catching" the group of students party to the trespass.

After initially talking to the students, I was asked if I was disappointed. I wasn't really. I was saddened, but I knew the characters of those involved, and to be disappointed implies a discrepancy between perceived & displayed character. This situation didn't speak so much of character as it did of the foolish mistakes children make by not taking time to think through their actions. I was saddened, and the nature of the transgression was one that resulted in the shaking of trust.

Because love builds itself on the foundation of the person's heart, my approach to Sparky barely changed. It is character that dictates one's actions, not actions that dictate character. This, of course, implies that transient activities are more likely a result of mistakes or poor planning than they are a result of fundamental shortcomings in the person itself. That notwithstanding, I nonetheless was party to the apprehension, investigation and discipline of the transgression at hand, and up until today, Sparky has altogether avoided me.

Again, I can appreciate the feelings of hurt and possibly betrayal inherent to her position. Most of the time, people do not believe that they are doing something wrong when they are doing it, and—especially if they are convinced that they indeed did nothing wrong—this holds even more true in youth, when wisdom & understanding have yet to become fully mature (do they ever?). I can't help but think that these experiences are just tastes of what parenthood eventually will be like (if not for me, than perhaps for you): Transgressions, whether deliberate or accidental, still remain transgressions, and justice mandates discipline (as does the fostering of integrity & character).

Nobody, I think, is pleased with the one who wields and implements the staff of instruction. Discipline rarely is a pleasant experience, and the feelings associated with punishment tend to generalise to the punisher—if even only for a short time. I'll be honest: I can't think of a single time when I've been punished where I turned to the disciplinarian and said, "Thank you. What you're doing is awesome." However, in hindsight, I have come to appreciate and respect those who made the effort to correct me for my transgressions.

Now, because of the ethereal nature of God and His relationship to us, it is very difficult for me to identify specific instances in my life where God Himself came & "brought down the law" upon me. He did, though, give me rather strict parents, and from them I have learned to be quite self-disciplined, particular & bent toward the pursuit of excellence in all of my activities. I was never pleased with my mother or father after they issued punishments, and those unhappy feelings would always tend to linger. This, perhaps, is the closest approximation that I have of what it may be like when God issues punishment in our lives: perhaps he uses others to administer in proxy? Or maybe providential circumstances—persons aside—also work in the service of divine correction? I'm not sure. What I am sure of, though, is that in this situation where it was necessary for me to administer discipline, I knew that my actions would bring about life and development. Conversely, I also knew that my actions would bring pain and hurt to Sparky. Inasmuch as she experienced the negative repercussions of being party to transgression, I in turn suffered—though my suffering was the result of compassion and empathy. I never believed my parents —or any grown up, for that matter—when they said, "This hurts me as much as it hurts you;" I now understand. I couldn't, therefore, possibly begin to understand the amount of pain, compassion & grief that God must have experienced when, not only was he compelled to punish mankind for its transgressions, but furthermore He took up those transgressions and placed them upon His very Self. Not ending there, the God of this universe proceeded to issue punishment for mankind's transgressions on the substitutionary target: Himself. Talk about feeling all sides of the situation. Grief at seeing the rules being broken (grief from knowing that the broken rules would hinder positive development), grief of knowing how to correct the problem (discipline), grief at administering discipline on those He loves, grief at embodying every single transgression against His law that ever existed and ever will exist, grief of enduring the punishment. Goodness me: I would never have been able to appreciate the extent of this sacrifice of love before experiencing what I have in the past few weeks. I may have come to this realisation some other way in the future, but I am glad that God is revealing more & more of his love & its awesome scope to me even in my youth.

I have experienced much distance from Sparky in the past couple weeks. This, in all honesty, has caused sadness in my heart, and the idea has come into my head on more than one occasion that perhaps it was I who did something wrong. However, in discussing the situation with my peers and the others involved, the consensus is that our activities as authorities were and are correct. It pains me to know that Sparky has deliberately chosen to distance herself from me, but it reminds me yet again that such a perspective could very well be (and I think "is very well") held by our Father in heaven when we choose also to remove ourselves from His presence.

I heard from Sparky a little over a week ago. She told me that she was sorry for the distance, citing that she felt awkward around me. I can totally understand her sentiments, and although there's nothing I'd like more than to talk to her & figure out what happened in her brain in these past few weeks, I recognise that there is nothing beneficial in forcing one's presence on another. I let her know that I'd be there for her, waiting until the time she's ready to come back presents itself.

Now, forgive me for beating what might seem to be a dead dog, but I again am brought to a clearer understanding of how God loves me and how He interacts with me. Often times, I distance myself from my heavenly Father, feeling let down or hurt—or even unworthy—to be in His presence. I can begin to comprehend why He lets some people to their own devices instead of presenting Himself in absolute splendour & glory, forcing our hands to come back to His throne & bow down at His feet. The human heart is a tender thing and it needs to be dealt with gently. In any relationship where love is the primary motivation, I have come to learn that the stronger party must bear the hardship in service of the lesser, and that through this, restoration and growth result. Laying aside what I want for what is best, considering the circumstances, is a difficult thing. But I know it must be done. And I will continue in it till the flowers of patience bear the fruit of restoration and redemption.

In sum:

What I have learned about God and His love through my time with Sparky is this: That God truly is a God of love, and that His love is so much more far-reaching and multi-faceted than I ever before imagined. I have had a taste of what it might be like to be one who gives and supports and is caught up in complete love for another person without any ulterior motive. I have come to understand how genuine love doesn't always equal happiness or joy, but how it often equals sacrifice and discomfort. I have come to know that despite the sacrifice and discomfort, there is something so much more powerful and so much more awe-inspiring in this concept of love which compels one to give freely & sacrificially to an other, even when it hurts & even if no compensation is ever returned. I am so glad that God loves me, and I can't even begin to fathom how full and rich His love must be in that He was willing to forsake all of His power and all of His holiness to become the vehicle of sin in place of me so that there could be restoration and redemption; that He chose to do this regardless of whether He'd receive compensation from me or not. That is crazy love, and that is amazing.

Thank You, Lord, for bringing Sparky into my life that I might grow to know You more. I stand in humble awe of You, reminded that while I am yet unworthy of what You've done, You love me nonetheless. Thank you.