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\nToday, I ran into someone who reminded me of a season of deep hurt and confusion.\u00a0 More than remind me of it, this person had intimate knowledge and influence over the people who wounded me, but at the same time he was \u201cfringe\u201d enough to not really have an opinion on the choices that ultimately left my husband and I angry and disillusioned about the local church\u2013 well..maybe not \u201cthe\u201d local church but definitely \u201cthat\u201d local church.<\/p>\nThe sad thing is, I\u2019ve actually been on this remarkably beautiful journey towards healing.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been meditating on cruciform- cross shaped\u2013love.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been finding my voice when it comes to matters of faith, family, theology, and mission.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been exploring new ways to\u00a0 practice shalom and this morning\u2026y\u2019all this morning\u2026I made applesauce from scratch\u2013winning\u2013for sure!\u00a0 Before I ran into this friend, I was confident God was making me into something new, beautiful, resilient, impervious to the brokenness of people.<\/p>\n
But, that\u2019s where my folly came in.\u00a0 Because no matter how much I study 1 Corinthians 13:1 to learn to speak with love and no matter how often I pray to lead with that very Christ-like\u00a0 love, love, by its very nature,\u00a0 requires vulnerability and vulnerability requires courage. C<\/strong>ourage to hope when the other person seems hopeless.\u00a0 Courage to extend grace when the other has been graceless. Courage to pray shalom for their lives when you want to take a page from David and call down vengeance\u00a0 (like atomic wedgies and fines for back parking tickets).\u00a0 Love requires the courage to reach out your hand to extend friendship when that person may very well take up a nail and a hammer and pierce your tender flesh.<\/p>\nThis is how I feel about that person and the community he represents.\u00a0 I stretched out my hands to offer friendship and they pierced it with their pride and fear of change.<\/p>\n
Tonight, I\u2019m sitting here wondering what I would say to myself eight hours ago when I was spinning out with insecurities, sinking back into the pain of that season, rehearsing offenses, and attributing motive.\u00a0 What would I say to Overwhelmed Osheta who came face to face with her woundedness?<\/p>\n
I think would say, \u201cBaby girl,\u201d (Because you must always, always, always begin with tenderness, especially when talking to yourself) \u201cDo you remember when all you could do was read Isaiah and find God speaking shalom over you?\u00a0 Do you remember when you wrote in your journal that you know God is for you and not against you?\u00a0 Remember when you listened to Francesca Battistelli and she called Jesus her constant and you pulled the car over cry because you knew, you knew, you knew that all though life in that community was a cluster-fudge of misunderstandings, misgivings, and misfortune,\u00a0 Jesus was your constant? So you cried out to him, pulled over on the side of the road nearly late to pick up your kids from school. Do you remember that?\u00a0 Do you remember when you sat in the door frame of the kitchen while your husband sat in his chair and you said, \u2018I know God has us at that church for reason, maybe we can be an encouragement, maybe we\u2019ll grow, but all this pain cannot be wasted!\u201d<\/p>\n
You were right.\u00a0 All that pain cannot be wasted. In the economy of God, suffering is never wasted.<\/strong>\u00a0 The cross was both the zenith of human suffering poured onto Jesus and the most lavish display of love there has ever been. Ever been. And Jesus, in his work to make the world new, embraced suffering as a necessary vehicle. So, yes, you\u2019re hurting right now, and yes you\u2019re a hot mess of insecurities and fears and lies and questions. And yes,\u00a0 you\u2019re worried that your not a good Christian because your still wounded around church and relationships and the Body.\u00a0 But it\u2019s ok.\u00a0 It\u2019s ok to embrace that you\u2019re a mixed bag of victories over some things and struggles with others.\u00a0 It\u2019s ok to have healing in one area and a tender spot in another.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make you a bad Christian\u2013 it makes you real, authentic, gritty, and useful.\u00a0 Because the cross, Baby was real.\u00a0 The Cross what authentic suffering and authentic passion.\u00a0 The Cross was gritty pain and a raw bid for our affection.\u00a0 The Cross was used to overcome the powers of this world and herald a new King.\u00a0 A Humble king.\u00a0 A Suffering King.\u00a0 A Holy King who is set apart not for his pomp, nor his circumstance, but set apart for his vulnerability to love us well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (I tend to start preaching when I talk to myself. Every preacher needs to preach the gospel first to herself and then her community.)<\/p>\nI would say to Upset Osheta at 1:30 this afternoon to stop and\u00a0 \u201csee God is doing a new thing?\u00a0 Do you not perceive it?\u201d\u00a0 Do you not notice the way your words have encouraged your friends?\u00a0 Do you not see how your small \u201cyeses\u201d to become a Noonday Ambassador, to join a Mom\u2019s group, to accept a book to review, or even to put down your phone and focus on your babies are reverberating shalom all around you?\u00a0 Do you not see how awesome your batch of applesauce came out?\u00a0 I mean girl, to add maple syrup at the very end was DIVINELY INSPIRED!\u00a0 Yes, girl the Lord was with you this morning hovering over that pot of simmering apples.<\/p>\n
Maybe Osheta at 1:30 wouldn\u2019t have believed this more settled and sure Osheta at 9pm tonight. I\u2019ve had some time process this in prayer and with friends. Probably between 1:30 and now, I needed to walk the path towards wholeness and if I\u2019ve learned anything in the aftermath of that season of pain, I learned this:\u00a0 healing is a journey we must take, one step at a time, one choice after another, one courageous invitation to love and and be loved.<\/p>\n
So today, I journey to this new place of peace\u00a0 and now I\u2019m sitting here reflecting for today\u2019s \u201copen when\u201d and I can say with all confidence:<\/p>\n
I do see all the ways God is at work around me and I should be thankful.\u00a0 I am wounded, but so is Jesus and even in his perfected body he stretched out his hands to Thomas to say see here, I bear the scars of my suffering.<\/p>\n
So, see here world, it\u2019s true, tonight I still bear the scars of my suffering around the church and friendships and the Body but, although I am scarred,<\/em> I refused to be scared<\/em>.\u00a0<\/strong> I can do this because I know that God\u2019s not finished with me so I won\u2019t stay tender for long.\u00a0\u00a0 I say this\u00a0 because I have eyes to see the small ways he is using me to create shalom.\u00a0 I\u2019m not giving into my fears because I know who is my constant friend, constant provider, my constant companion in this suffering\u2013 Jesus, My Lord and My Wonderfully Wounded King.<\/p>\nWhat about you fellow wounded one?\u00a0 Will you link arms with me in confidence that he that has begun a good work in us will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus?\u00a0<\/a> I hope you will, because we\u2019ve got a world full of wounded people who have not found our Constant\u00a0 and it\u2019s our jobs to stretch our our wounded hands and say , \u201csee here I bear the scars of my suffering, too! Let\u2019s run to Jesus, wounded hand in wounded hand and ask him whisper healing over us.\u201d<\/p>\nAnd now, I\u2019m ready to move on, pray for that brother in Christ, and have a big bowl of my wicked good homemade applesauce.<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019ve earned it today.<\/p>\n
Thanks be to God.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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