I decline to respond. I decline to respond. I decline to respond.

The hurt is starting to plow down deep and the spirit of what my friend calls “aloha” is lost on a population of pious attitudes.

Aloha is defined as warm affection. It’s affection for a person, an attitude, a presence, or just an overall environment. Aloha is family, love, care, hello, goodbye, best wishes, and a general sense of hope. It embraces all the good and propels a person forward in community, discipline, and discernment. It allows for true faith and understanding. It is not prejudice against skin color or capability. Aloha embraces the true love that God is. Aloha ke Akua. God is love.

Dealing with a loss in my connection to a community is a heartache I never thought I would have to face in church or in trust. That aloha I thought that I could carry from my days in Hawaii seems quite fleeting. It must be a foreign concept to a people who are stuck in a bubble of contentious behaviors of their own making when things don’t fit in their neat little boxes.

I want to respond beyond the pages of a post and the walls of my house. Sometimes I want to lash out and be that mean girl that we all want to avoid in the restroom stalls of the high school down the road. I want to roll my eyes and stomp my foot as a child who doesn’t get her way and hope that my fit will get deserved time and attention.

But as always, the Spirit comes along and convicts this believer’s heart of God’s truth.

A fool gives full vent to his spirit,
but a wise man quietly holds it back. Proverbs 29:11

Oh, I want to vent. Here I am. I want to complain. That I am. My heart wants to cry and be allowed sadness. It is. I know that some of you have been right here where I am. Maybe you’re on the same path just steps ahead.

I feel that I sometimes see the light ahead and that the season is coming to an end. At least I think that I can picture some sort of certitude of a completed season approaching.

As the Lord convicts me further on my travels through this life and juncture, I am processing through the line of complaining versus voicing concern and looking for guidance. Dealing with hurt where hurt doesn’t belong is tricky and often misguided by good intentions.

Seek aloha. There is a need to embrace the fleeting idea of warmth in unity, love, and community. If I need to wade past the misfortune of hurt, I suppose that’s part of the Lord’s plan for me, but the beauty of a Christian’s life often lies in the testimony of refinement through fire. I just hope that aloha lives on the other side of this season.

I surely could use the sweet smell of the Hawaiian trade winds rushing through this winter I seem to be lost in.

More from this short series found at this link.