Does it hurt?

Matthew 10:35, "For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

Have you ever wondered if it hurts for a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly. I have a sneaking suspicion it does. Yesterday I heard one of the saddest stories of my lifetime as a son and as a Christian. It was to me the embodiment of today's passage.

I heard the story of a man who grew up in Indonesia as the son of an American missionary. As a teen he moved to US where his dad became a Pastor in one of the meccas of his denomination. Somewhere along the line something went tragically wrong. His dad went through an unknown crisis. The result was divorcing his wife of 20+ years, abandoning his family to return to Indonesia where he converted to Islam. On the other side of the relationship it appears his mother went the exact opposite with her life. She buried herself deeper in the doctrine of her denomination. She has become dogmatic to the point of alienating this one son. What a struggle this has created from my new friend.

It's one thing to have faith around those who love you. To go to church on a Sunday and share some common beliefs. It is a whole other thing to have faith in the absence of the same. Can you imagine having a father who taught you everything he knows with conviction, to suddenly forsake that conviction is such a dramatic way? Can you imagine having that while simultaneously having a mother reject you because you are not Christian enough?

This is cruelty beyond comprehension until you get a taste of this man's heart discovery. I almost asked him to give me something he had written. It was a beautiful account of the internal struggle. The struggle to turn the other check, and to love in spirit in the midst of such a surreal conflict. It is a transformation that I got to see in part today. It was like looking into the cocoon and seeing the butterfly before it's complete. I thank everyone involved for allowing me to be a part.

If you are thinking Stockholm Syndrome at this point then we are not thinking alike. I am thinking "I came to set man against father." Here is a man living that scripture and seeing the "I" in it. He is deep in the arms of the "I am" because of it. It hurts, it's trans-formative, but it is also beautiful.

"A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Isaiah 53:3 Of which Oswald Chambers says,"We are not acquainted with grief in the way in which Our Lord was acquainted with it; we endure it, we get through it, but we do not become intimate with it." My friend above, like Christ has become very intimate with it.