Separated from the love of God
I’m a Christian. So, what can separate me from the love of God? Romans 8 38-39 is a whole mood.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I’m lucky that I have that going for me, because I have fears of today and worries of tomorrow in abundance. I have known both angels and demons. Sometimes the pain of my own head is unbearable. One of my favourite lines in the hymn “in Christ alone”
No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the pow'r of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand
No power of hell, no scheme of man. Whenever I feel unloved and un-loveable I remember that people’s opinions of me can’t remove me as the daughter of Christ. But it also means I must extend that grace to others. And that grace is infinite. Using a crude example, if you can “catch a beating” for a trait, it’s something that can invalidate your human experience. If a certain trait defines your experience of the world, it also can invalidate your human experience. My examples include
Race
Gender
Religion
Being part of the LGBTQ+ community
Disability
Being too fat
Being too poor
Being too short
Being ugly
Basically, if you aren’t male, of European decent, who is heterosexual, not poor or ugly, Christian, and a minimum of 6ft. Your life is being seen by the rest of society through the defining prism of whatever disability you have. Yes, being black is a disability because people automatically assume I’m less able than a white counterpart. Women are less likely to be believed as reliable witnesses than men.We are also seen as less capable of handling responsibility, and if we can it’s only because we’re “‘masculine.” Ugly people suffer from lack of “pretty privilege” where they are treated more harshly, seen as stupid. Ditto for poor people. Short people get picked on for their “Napoleon complex” and “small dick syndrome” and when they complain they’re referred to as “scrappy little bitches” big dogs don’t need to bark all the time. Small dogs are always yapping. Gay people are typecast as flamboyant and attention seeking. Stemming from when homosexuality was seen as “the Italian vice” (buggery) and it was then called the “French disease” disease, something that’s wrong with a person. Because clearly how someone loves has a direct correlation to their ability to do any given vocation. I assume all are
Heterosexual men are good at maths? Because they’re “straight” if you got a C or less in GCSE maths you are a homosexual.
God help you if you have multiple of these prisms to sift through. Can you imagine being short, black, ugly female, LGBTQ+ with a disability? Most people would not get out of bed life would be so hard.
Why am I saying this? I’m having a “don’t judge others fest” because I realised I have pretty privilege. That’s not me on an ego trip. It’s literal fact. I have and have had “main character energy” with regards to my own life, and a certainty that it will all turn out okay, why? Because I’m beautiful and that amplifies all of my good traits. In the same way I would shun my ex husband’s sexual needs because I found him ugly. “Look at you with your 2 chins and flab pack approaching me like you’re Chadwick Boseman!” “Sit yourself down in the corner where no one can see you.” I didn’t recognise that in myself. Nor did I recognise that I kept him around for nearly 10 years because he was a safety blanket of “ oh well at least I’m not ugly, or at least I’m doing better than…” How did I recognise this? Whenever I’m low I think of him. Not out of love, but because it used to be a comfort mechanism which I no longer have. I notice that absence. That I can’t comfort myself thinking I am better than him (this is a huge diss to myself. This is me recognising that I was seriously conceited, and I’m still recovering from it.It is not however a diss at all to my ex husband. Whether or not the above is literally true or true in spirit only I know.) But ultimately I had to let that part of me go. I had to recognise he was doing well and maybe even better without me and that’s okay because I’m doing better without him. It is also my wake up call on dating apps not to invalidate the fact that a man with 2 chins might want “something casual” stemming from the conceit of pretty privilege “you’ll get what you’re given fat man” See? When I say it like that it comes off rude and conceited. Yet any other way it sounds reasonable. “Of course! They should be grateful a beauty such as you even considers them, they shouldn’t be audacious and ask for sex only” (that’s what “something casual” means) but everyone has needs and wants. And what they look like on the outside/how they pray/how they love is both none of anyone’s business and also it doesn’t invalidate their needs. People got hung for being homosexual. Something they couldn’t help. People got lynched, raped and castrated for being black. Something else they couldn’t help. People have been slaughtered in their millions for their religion. And that’s since WW2, yet they are innocent of doing anything other than loving a God with a different name/s to their murderers. It’s astonishing the cruelty we can inflict on others because we dislike less than 2% of them. The other 98% must be burned. Can a hand be homosexual? Can you tell a brown eye of a European from that of an African? No? Then why did we pluck people’s eyes out. Can a foot of a 5-year-old boy be a terrorist? No? Why did he lose his foot to bombs we made then?
Make love friends, not war. Love 100% of everyone’s human experience. And if you can’t, look within, not at them.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother Smith.