Blog

As I sit to write my very first “blog” posting I am wondering of all the topics and conversations floating in my head, which is relevant and most meaningful….and which are the mullings of someone who may need another cup of coffee?  It is my hope to be authentic, honest, and that somehow my writing will encourage or challenge someone else’s journey.

Today I find myself a bit heavy hearted after hearing some extremely painful stories of, addictions relapsed, grief so deep, rage misguided…brokenness taken out in a variety of outlets.  So, where do I go with that?  What hope is there to be had?  Well intended “pat” answers (I.e. all things work for good) leave me believing there is more…

How can we find a hope that we can cling to, that is real? How do we reconcile the “both/and” as I like to call it…the raw brokenness/wholeness, despair/hope, depraved/holy, the ugly/beauty that is in each of us.  What I mean, is that we were created perfect, whole, and beautiful yet because of sin we are broken, separate, and depraved.  The “joy and pain”…” sun and rain” as I heard this morning The David Crowder Band singing about in their song “Never Let  Go”.

Because of Jesus, we have been given hope, grace, and wholeness.  He restores us to be who we were created to be.  Yet, we so often still choose slavery.  Why?

I believe that if we were to choose freedom (Galatians 5:1), to choose the healing being offered, we have to acknowledge the broken, the depraved, and the wounded places.  To acknowledge would mean to “face it”, to talk about it, to open the doors to what brought us to the destructive places we are in, to feel the pain of looking at hard things that up to this point have a big “do not enter” all over them.  Rooms of our hearts that have been locked up, walled off, and denied access…they have to be opened up and looked into.  The fear of that can be so overwhelmingly great that we choose what we know; we choose the addiction, we choose the pain and muck, the denial, whatever the escapist medication of choice, we choose to avoid the healing power that leads to freedom.

I have great empathy and tenderness because I know how terrifying it can be to even consider the path of facing things.  Yet, as I have chosen that path myself, as well as chosen a profession to walk alongside others on that journey I have a phrase I like to use….it is a “delightful terror”.  Because, while it is scary and will not be without pain, there is a freedom and peace to be gained that is delightful on the other side.