Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Perfect through Suffering
I sit by invitation with men and women that have experienced soul damaging abuse. Gut wrenching stories pour out of the basement of their tender shattered hearts. It is more than horrific how common these stories are; each week, each month and each year they sound different but the remaining damage and despair does not. I've heard a dear friend describe it as an unzipping of one's soul in effort to allow the black slug to ooze out, forever out.
A key to healing is a willingness to feel the pain, experience it and allow Jesus to bear it....instead pain has became the enemy.
I know God sees His children in pain as I watch them wrestle to untangle shame from their Righteousness. I sit quietly as my Spirit matches His gentle groans; his desires to be trusted, His yearning to provide safe comfort and his eagerness to show his children that HE IS DIFFERENT from what they've experienced.
God your tenderness amazes me.
She was 19 when she first said no to her father's sexual advances, never knowing him as anything other than a lover.
He was 11 when the intensity of his shame sent him to explore his little sister's body.
She was 9 when her bully baited her into the house where 2 others wait to rape her.
His love.
I spent years pouring my own dark reality out, clinging to the Cross and in turn receiving comfort and redemption like only He can do. Because of Jesus our pain has a place to go and we too are made perfect in our long suffering, raised in his love better able to love as He does.
Love is GENTLE, PATIENT, KIND and HUMBLE
Love ALWAYS protects, ALWAYS trusts, ALWAYS hopes and ALWAYS preserves.
God I claim your Glory for the willing, especially the fearfully willing.
God never stop knocking on the door of our heart's basement.
God hold the seen & unseen damage of these men and women.
God bless their courage with your tangible presence.
God make these stories beautiful with your love that never ends.
God restore your children for your kingdom belongs to them.
Bound to Jesus
Raised in love
Used for His good
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2 comments:
Wow. I so needed this today. Shame has won too many battles recently. Hardness of heart and wanting to call out to Jesus but being afraid to because so much of me is so sure that He's no different, really, from those who robbed me of my childhood by various kinds of abuse and made so clear to me that I am on my own.
I do so wish He would show up as different. So I can see and KNOW that it's true. For me. Not just true for all of them out there, but true for me in here. An encounter so powerful that it changes everything. An encounter with LOVE so powerful that it undoes all of the other.
Seems too much to hope for...
Could you reading this be Jesus' gentle pursuit of you?
Only He can replace what the enemy is trying to kill, steal and destroy.
He seeks you out everyday; every gentle breeze, every sunset and every ocean wave is created to draw you to him. The starry sky that blankets your night is created with an invitation to you that includes the message "I am here."
He wants you to know him, he is not hiding. He's been looking for you for a long time.
He wants you to know you are the object of his affection, created in his image, made by Him and for Him.
Ps 3:3 He is the shield about you and the lifter of your head!
Ex 14:14 The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.
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