When 'this' is really about 'that'

One day just recently, I was driving through Morocco and feeling on top of the world. You know those moments when everything seems to be aligned? You feel like the right person, in the right place, at just the right time. You’re doing what you love, in a way that feels totally worthwhile; finally all the ways you’ve been learning and growing seem to culminate in some deeply meaningful ways. Life is good!

The next day, after a short phone conversation with my nearest and dearest, I felt like I’d been sucker-punched. All the air had gone out of me, I was utterly deflated and felt like giving up, running away. Tears prickled behind my eyes and I couldn’t even imagine what had made me feel so on-top-of-the-world just hours before. How is it possible that a short conversation can have such a devastating effect? 

Have you ever wondered at the way a person’s facial expression or tone of voice, or sometimes the words they say, can sort of side-swipe you into anger, or depression, or fear?

I sat in a shaft of sunshine on the rooftop of the home where I was staying, drying my eyes and pulling myself together. As I picked my way through the minefield of my own emotions, triggers and history, I could see a little of why I had reacted so strongly to an otherwise benign conversation. I tentatively edged towards what was really going on inside - much of which had very little to do with what had been said or not said over the phone.

You see, Tim had unwittingly strayed into the ‘Private Property’ of my heart where unwelcome trespassers may get more than they bargained for!

Do you remember when it used to be normal to say the Lord’s Prayer in church, or at school assembly? In this past season, I have made it a daily habit to pray this prayer. And, although the devotional I read from has the words, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” I find another phrase deeply ingrained in me from schooldays:

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

I’ve mostly said these words thinking only of committing an offence, or doing something wrong. But the most obvious or modern meaning of the word ‘trespass’ is to wander into an area where you are not permitted or wanted. It is an intrusion into a place that is private, or sacred, a place where people are not allowed to meddle or mess things up.

And the thing is, we all have those places in our lives that we have cordoned off for our own protection. Places where we don’t want people stomping around insensitively. Places where the landscape is too multi-layered, too complex, too nuanced to be easily disclosed.

Yet the reality of relationships is that people will trespass into our most sensitive areas - and we will do the same to them. Whether intentionally or unintentionally - and mostly the latter - people will hurt us by walking over places in our lives where we have been hurt before. Their words, or expressions, their tone of voice, or lack of words, or body language - anything could be the sharp-angled thing that pokes at a sore point. Suddenly we are feeling pain, or anger (that often masks pain), or fear that is out of proportion to whatever it was they did or said. 

We react in a way that tells us that there is unhealed pain somewhere that needs our attention. 

And however long in the tooth we are, however long we have been working through our early histories, however much healing we have already experienced, it is likely that there is a deeper level of restoration to which we are invited. If only we can avoid the distraction of whatever it was that just triggered our latest explosion and see through the sparks and flashes to what is really at stake.

Tim and I exchanged a few voice messages until we were able to look at our conversation and my reaction to it from the same vantage point. And somewhere deep within me that old prayer rose once again to my lips: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Let Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”