Blessings
For months, now, I’ve been meaning to buy a copy of Rachel Remen’s book My Grandfather’s Blessings. I saw her speak sometime last winter, left absolutely dazed by how loved and inspired and happy she made me feel, and have had a number of dreams since then telling me to BUY HER BOOK. Can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do it. Is it not the hugest irony that I accidentally put half of our old address and half of our new one on the order for it? By some miracle it showed up on my porch today.
Anyhow, one of the first stories she tells is of her grandfather telling her, as a very young child, the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the Holy. I read it out loud to N and couldn’t get through half of it without crying. Here’s the two paragraphs I love the most:
I was very puzzled by this story. How could it be that one might confuse an angel with an enemy? But Grandfather said this was the sort of thing that happened all the time. "Even so," he told me, "it is not the most important part of the story. The most important part of the story is that everything has its blessing."
Looking back on it, I have wondered if my grandfather, old and close to the time of his death, had not left me with this story as a compass. It is a puzzling story, a story about the nature of blessings and the nature of enemies. How tempting to let the enemy go and flee. To put the struggle behind you as quickly as possible and get on with your life. Life might be easier then but far less genuine. Perhaps the wisdom lies in engaging the life you have been given as fully and courageously as possible and not letting go until you find the unknown blessing that is in everything.
June 20th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
i loved this book, when i happened upon it at a friends house, a while back, and i need to buy it as well… thanks for the reminder;)
June 21st, 2005 at 10:26 pm
I love that Scripture as well. Do you realize where the blessing in the story began? When morning came, and he realized that he had been wrestling with God, he refused to let Him go. He said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” What a powerful statement, albeit a simplistic one in its approach! He had been wrestling all night with God, and now he said he would not let go of God until He blessed Him.
That is where the Church has went wrong today: we have let go of God. We lose sleep at night, wrestling with God over issues of finances, marital problems, hidden sins, and confusion over our purpose. Yet when we are done wrestling with the issue, we let go of the God. We should be as father Jacob, and refuse to let God go until He blesses us! We should not leave Church, not stop praying, refuse to cease fasting, press on in our meditating, read the Word without fainting, and refuse to let God go until He changes our very lives!
Have you let God go? Or are you continuing to hold on to Him, even after you’ve wrestled with Him?