The Face of God (feat. KT)

My sister Katie's eighteenth birthday was on Friday. She has been one of my closest companions and friends. She makes me laugh, knows me so well, loves me so well, and sings/preaches the gospel over me. She is the hands and feet of Christ to those around her. I am one of her biggest fans, but I haven't always felt that way.

In honor of her and the hard relational work she has done to love me like she does today, here is an essay I wrote in her honor this last semester. Throughout the essay I reference and quote two amazing books that I read this semester. If any of the ideas I bring up are intriguing please consider reading either or both of them:

Reconcile by John Paul Lederach

Exclusion & Embrace by Miroslav Volf

When I asked my sister, Katie, about my enemies, she suggested herself. She and I haven’t always been best friends. She was born two years my younger, and that was the perfect age gap for conflict to emerge. We bickered like any siblings do, but as Katie has pointed out, our conflicts emerged out of a fear of isolation and exclusion. When we fought, we were fighting for something and made sacrifices, often in the form of our relationship with each other. After that much pain, the journey (Lederach, 2014, p. 14) of reconciliation has taken time for me to seek the truth about our relationship, seek reconciliation with God, and seek reconciliation with Katie. It is one of my proudest achievements to be able to see the face of God in the face of one that I have both loved and hated so fiercely.

Like all siblings, Katie and I butted heads every once in a while. However, there was a lot more going on under the surface. Katie's earliest recollections of conflict between us took place in early elementary school. After returning from our first time at summer camp, our mom had set up a play date with one of the girls who had been in our cabin. The girl came over to play and ended up spending most of her time in my room. Katie remembers me very explicitly making the distinction that this girl was not our friend, but solely my friend. I had pulled a Jacob (Lederach, 2014, pp. 30-35), sacrificing my relationship with my sibling in return for a benefit that was fleeting.

It took me much longer to realize that our conflicts had a lot more riding on them than a sibling rivalry. This took place my sophomore year of high school. I had just begun to spend time with a new group of friends and really felt like these people really were worth it. I had been invited to get ready with them for the homecoming dance at one of the other girl's homes. I had just gotten back from a cross country meet across town and was anxious to not miss out. I needed to shower and clean my room before I was allowed to leave the house. I felt anxious and stressed. Katie came into my room to ask me about something and seemed to want to spend time with me. I didn't have the time and was annoyed that she didn't seem to understand that. When asking my sister to leave didn't work, I thought I might be able to physically help her understand what I meant. Instead of corraling her towards the door to leave, I pushed her to the floor where she landed on top of my cello. We didn't need to look to know the instrument was broken for good. We both burst into tears. She had sought me out and I had turned her down in return for time with my new friends. There was no way that I could ignore the crack that had formed in my relationship with my sister, just as I couldn't ignore the crack in my instrument.

Katie and I spent a lot of time together that year as we worked to pay off our debt to our parents and the school district. Eighty hours of manual labor is a great way to mend a relationship, but only if you are willing to put in the work. Katie and I were both trying to relearn how to be sisters (Volf, 1996, p.97). But more importantly, we were both learning how to follow God. My new group of friends were Christians, and I began to learn about Christ and his "self-giving love" (Volf, 1996, p.29) for me. The Gospel of grace was created for a cello breaker like me, and that became my new narrative. I could no longer hide my faults from myself and make excuses for my actions (Volf, 1996, p.80), but instead had to accept the grace (Volf, 1996, p.45) that had been extended to me. Just like with any skill, practicing "self-giving love" (Volf, 1996, p.29) is not something you can succeed at all at once. Each hour of manual labor was a chance for us to practice our new tool in our conflict toolbelt. You couldn't ever tell who was going to be the most mature of the two of us each time we took the painful gamble to shovel snow or dig a hole together as partners. I don't remember that season of working through our conflict to be a spotless record for either Katie or I. What I do remember are the genuine prayers of "God, why [today]?" (Lederach, 2014, pp.34-35) as one of us would see the signs of conflict brewing and stop it in its tracks (Lederach, 2014). As two stubborn and proud people, I don't think we would have even been able to have any sort of progress without both of us seeking God. I was never sure about the outcome of our interactions, but I could be sure that my sister was pursuing God with all that she had within her, just like I was.

Following all of this work of tilling the fields of our hearts and the fields of our neighbors, our journey "through and toward conflict" (Lederach, 2014, p.42) was not finished. While working to pay off the price of the cello, we also had both been raising funds to travel to Haiti on a missions trip with our youth group. My mom, Katie, and I were all going, along with my entire new group of friends. As time outside of our comfort zone often does, my time in Haiti stretched me in ways I couldn't have even imagined. I was miserable, but it was even more miserable to be around me. My best friend coming into the trip and Katie got close as they bonded over the difficulties of the trip and of me. In my mind, my greatest fear had finally come true and Katie had stolen my friends, leaving me isolated and excluded. The most hurting parts of myself were open to the world and I was desperate to cover them before anyone noticed, with Katie bearing the brunt of that desperation. With the power of humidity driven hysteria and exhaustion, our last fight was one of our worst. However, at the end of it all, my sister saw through my pain and said exactly what I needed to hear, "Hannah, I love you and you are more important to me than anyone and anything else. And God loves you even more." And with that, I could no longer see the face of my enemy, but the face of God.

Katie and I haven't reached a perfect reconciliation. We still butt heads sometimes and if anyone knows how to push my buttons, it is Katie. Writing this was a journey in and of itself, in which I had to seek the truth of my past, the face of God, and the face of my sister again for the hurt I have caused. No matter how many times I go through the steps of reconciliation, I still see the face of God in Katie's ability to have faith in me, extend grace when I need it, and shower me in undeserving love.