BROKEN BY LOVE
In the last few years I've gradually come to a perplexing discovery. When I examine my life, when I look back at where I've been and what has changed, I see that the periods that are the most beautiful to me are also the periods of time when I have experienced the deepest pain. I can't say that this is a universal phenomenon, or that I consider every instance of pain a good thing. I will say this, however: the broken places are the places where I've met God.
As we surrender our baggage; as we release the burdens and the chains that have owned us and bruised us, we are going to experience the harshest extremes of emotion and human experience. We will be broken. Releasing our idols and our captors will take us into realms of hurt, regret, shame, vulnerability, weakness, guilt, exhaustion, and places that we have resisted going our entire lives. We will also find joy and wholeness and grace beyond our ability to comprehend. Yet it is a terrifying thing to lay our souls bare and admit that we have nothing. This is a place of brokenness. Always remember though, brokenness is the place where God heals us. It sounds paradoxical, but when we are weak, God is strong.
I believe with my entire being that the most important lesson that God will teach us in the middle of our broken places is that we are loved. More than we can even fathom. God loves us. In "The Inner Voice of Love", Henri Nouwen writes these imperative words for the heart that is struggling to find healing: "You must believe in the 'yes' that comes back when you ask, 'do you love me?' You must choose this yes even when you do not experience it. Nothing else will provide healing or answers or satisfaction to the longings and hurts inside of you. You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God's love even when you do not feel it. Keep saying, 'God loves me, and God's love is enough.' You have to choose the solid place over and over again and return to it after every failure,"
Have you owned the truth of God's deep love for you? Is that the place that you return to everyday, after every failure and in every weakness? You are named, you are loved. Unless you come to the place where that love is real in you, you will never find wholeness. God loves you, and God's love is enough.
As we surrender our baggage; as we release the burdens and the chains that have owned us and bruised us, we are going to experience the harshest extremes of emotion and human experience. We will be broken. Releasing our idols and our captors will take us into realms of hurt, regret, shame, vulnerability, weakness, guilt, exhaustion, and places that we have resisted going our entire lives. We will also find joy and wholeness and grace beyond our ability to comprehend. Yet it is a terrifying thing to lay our souls bare and admit that we have nothing. This is a place of brokenness. Always remember though, brokenness is the place where God heals us. It sounds paradoxical, but when we are weak, God is strong.
I believe with my entire being that the most important lesson that God will teach us in the middle of our broken places is that we are loved. More than we can even fathom. God loves us. In "The Inner Voice of Love", Henri Nouwen writes these imperative words for the heart that is struggling to find healing: "You must believe in the 'yes' that comes back when you ask, 'do you love me?' You must choose this yes even when you do not experience it. Nothing else will provide healing or answers or satisfaction to the longings and hurts inside of you. You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God's love even when you do not feel it. Keep saying, 'God loves me, and God's love is enough.' You have to choose the solid place over and over again and return to it after every failure,"
Have you owned the truth of God's deep love for you? Is that the place that you return to everyday, after every failure and in every weakness? You are named, you are loved. Unless you come to the place where that love is real in you, you will never find wholeness. God loves you, and God's love is enough.
posted by Journey Church at 11:20 a.m.
1 Comments:
Thank you all for such thoughtful reflection. It's been a couple weeks since I checked back here... really good stuff! I shared a quote on Sunday that I thought I'd post here.
"Our deepest fear is not that
we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
We were born to make manifest the
glory of God that is within us.
And as we let our own light shine
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same."
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
It's interesting to me that the glory of God manifest within us is demonstrated most brilliantly in our weakness... or at least weakness that is surrendered to and transformed by God.
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