What to say about the 5th floor…it is an interesting place, but it isn’t very pretty. It has lumpy carpet with dirt ground into it, and the walls have bubbles where water or some other unknown substance has caused the plaster to move away from the actual wall. To the normal viewer, it is probably the one of the “grosser” floors because of the lack of maintenance. In fact, I walked down it the other day, looked up with a smile and realized that they finally replaced some of the burnt out light bulbs. Let’s just say, our hotel is anything but classy. (I should note that roof over our head is definitely something worth being grateful for.)Despite all of its deficiencies, the 5th floor is a very special place to me.
Oddly enough, I don’t live on the 5th floor and I probably never will. I’ve lived on the 3rd floor, and I currently occupy an apartment on the 4th floor (much to the chagrin of my downstairs neighbors, fellow DTSers). J But, my high opinion of the 5th floor remains the same.
This week has officially been rough, and it is only Thursday. Even though we’ve had the chance to color pictures and try to see who can find the difference in the pictures the fastest, this week has been full of those awesome rollercoaster emotions that I mentioned last week. I feel as though the Lord has mainly been speaking to me about forgiveness and reconciliation, can we all jump up and down and clap our hands now? Yeah, I thought so, no one really likes this topic. That is okay, neither do I. :D Oddly enough, we have been learning about forgiveness and reconciliation from the book of Philemon, if that isn’t what you got out of the book of Philemon take another look. J I started out this week (Sunday actually) receiving a letter from one of my fellow DTSers telling me how much I had hurt her; I will be the first to admit, I can be rather blunt. Her full length letter went on to tell me that she felt degraded by me and that I made her feel insignificant. My heart broke as I read the letter. I do not believe that anyone wants to hear that they have hurt someone else in any way. She then finished the letter off by asking for my forgiveness as well. It was a difficult pill to swallow, for sure! I can tell you right here and now that my gut reaction was to throw the letter away and NEVER deal with this issue. The problem: there are only 14 DTSers….avoidance is not an option! After a couple of minutes, I knew I needed to apologize, but my pride was definitely in the way of this situation. I didn’t really WANT to apologize especially after some of the things that she wrote. I walked up and down my hallway (4th floor) for a good 20 minutes before I knocked on one of our staffer’s door to talk about the letter. I needed a 3rd person to give me some perspective into this letter because I was most definitely not being objective…
Long story short, I apologized, received forgiveness and gave forgiveness…the process of reconciliation had to take place, but not before I took the matter to God on the 5th floor. Not before I came to a place of utter and total peace about this person as well as my role in unintentionally hurting this person. I had to come to that place where I realized that I could be friends with someone who had hurt me and I didn’t really get along with…sometimes, personalities do not always mesh. However, as adults, as members of the Christian community, the Church, the Body of Christ, I had to take that initial step of reaching out and jumping over a hurtle that stood between us. I had to choose the right way to respond rather than the way I would have liked to respond in that specific instance, and I reached this understanding with God on the 5th floor.
For me, the 5th floor is both a physical place and a metaphorical state of spiritual worship. It is that space where we come to stand before our Lord and worship Him alone. It is the place that we wrestle with the things the Lord is teaching us or wanting us to do, the place where we cry out for mercy and forgiveness, and the place where we allow God to heal us and each other. It is that place that we take a step beyond ourselves and focus only on the Lord. He is in that space.
Later in the week, as we were reading through Philemon, but seemingly inspired by God, I was pushed to consider reconciliation with a few others that I know. Actually, the class was instructed to go through the process of forgiveness and reconciliation, but God revealed to me that I am really good at forgiving people, then forgetting literally everything…the transgression…the person…everything. I felt God ask me to step beyond simply forgiving, but also reaching out to those around me and maintaining a friendship despite past hurts. Thankfully, I had the renewed friendship from earlier in the week to use as motivation to really make a change. Thanks God for giving me a picture of something that I didn’t really want to do, but had to do anyway as a model for what I am supposed to do for the rest of my week….let’s just say, I have a little bit of homework to follow in Philemon’s example of loving Onesimus.
Then, on Thursday night, my dear friend, a fellow DTSer decided to leave our DTS!! It was horrible to watch her pack her stuff, place it on the baggage cart, roll it to her car, and drive away. My heart was broken because this girl has been a dear friend to me. When I am down, she is the one I turn to for a good laugh, a hug, and a warm smile. Instead of wallowing in the sadness, we decided to get together as a DTS and pray for her. We decided to pray that her journey be safe, her road would be straight, and that she would get into a Canadian university. However, even more powerful was our time of worship afterward, we felt called to praise God even in the confusion and hurt. In essence, we went to the 5th floor to praise Him for being in control and for giving us peace in this time of heartache. I know it sounds insane to be this sad about someone leaving after having only knowing them for a month, but DTS is a time of getting to know each other very well. And a family atmosphere has already taken root amongst our small band of Christ followers. Prank phone calls should be enough of an example of brotherly and sisterly annoyance and affection. We have grown together. To have one of our own severed from us creates sad feelings, confusion, and brokenness. However, we also feel that the Lord will strengthen us during this time. He will use this situation for His good and bond those of us left together even tighter than before.
As a final note and prayer request, please pray for our DTS. Pray for our staff, all of the DTSers, our speakers, and our outreach. The fact of the matter is, our DTS has been under attack from the moment we got here. First, one of our male DTSers left after the 2nd or 3rd week. Then some of our speakers cancelled, got delayed, or were unable to meet us here in Canada
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