God gives and He takes away, but He always gives back more ~ always His best. Nothing is wasted. Not time, not love, nor suffering. And in Christ, there will always be suffering if we are truly One
in Him. It is what we are called for, to share in His suffering that we might bless others.
He gives and gives, impressing on us to give as He does, expecting nothing in return.
But giving requires a receiver. God offers us love, salvation, grace, mercy, forgiveness and so much more. But the gift is just an empty box if the receiver refuses to accept what is freely given.
God gives eyes to see and ears to hear to those who ask in His Name.We must be willing to accept those gifts as well, knowing they may expose us, the real us. It's called surrender.
It's called Freedom. It's called Grace, and it's found at the Cross.
It doesn't matter what people see or think of us because what matters is what God sees. And even if he sees a mess, He still looks down on us with eyes filled with love. And He blesses us with other "messes", to walk alongside and carry us, not to judge, but to lift us up and love us in spite of our mistakes.
With palms turned down, we release all burdens and hardships to Him. He accepts them willlingly because He loves us and He hurts when we're hurting. He shares in our pain and wants to release it from us.
With palms turned up, we receive His gift of Grace.
God's greatest desire is to be in a sacred romance with each one of His children. Life is not about our happiness or our dreams, it's about loving, serving, and glorifying our Risen Savior, Jesus Christ from the very depths of our souls.
"Becomers don't pull away from the suffering, but lean into it, "knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint." There is no other way.
"You cannot call yourself Christian, one of Christ's, and live trying to make wide circles around your pain. You don't close your eyes to the hurt and pretend the wound and wounded don't exist. To follow Christ means to follow Christ into suffering, not onto easy street."
In the midst of everything that went wrong, this is what I hear. "Everything seen, exposed, is ugly beautiful. Is. Because Christ is redeeming everything."
Thank you, Jesus. For taking my ugly, messed-up self, and covering me, AGAIN, so that my ashes become beauty for You. Amen.
"The thing that wounds us, is often the thing that God will walk us through again to heal us."
Jeremiah 6:16
I stand at the crossroads and look;
I ask for the ancient paths, ask where
the good way is, and walk in it,
there, I will find rest for my soul. (emphasis mine)
