Weakness

From this week’s Sacred Space:

The experience of weakness deepens both our sensitivity to human need and our experience of prayer. There is an important consequence for all of us: we must make such a life possible for one another. We must support one another in weakness, forgiving one another our daily faults and carrying one another’s burdens. It would be absurd to see weakness as an essential part of our calling, and then to belittle those who are deficient, to resent those who are insensitive, unsophisticated or clumsy, to allow disagreements to become hostilities, or to continue battles and angers because of personal histories.

When I examine my heart, I find that I am still holding on to many instances of resentment and unforgiveness. Forgiveness really is an ongoing exercise, for even when the wounds have healed, there remain scars. Sometimes the unforgiveness is forgotten and unnoticed until some little thing triggers it. Sometimes, the unforgiveness is so much a part of my daily life that I become seemingly immune to it.

When I think of how weak and flawed and helpless I am, I wonder how I cannot be more forgiving to others who inflict injury in their weakness. I’ve willed to forgive, I desire to forgive… and yet I find that the task is not completed. The human heart is indeed fathomless.

There is never a place for complacency. There needs to be constant pruning in the garden of my heart or else it would soon be over-run by weeds.