It is upon the
stormy seas that we cling most deeply to our Savior. This is why the pain is a
blessing. Cherish it with me now, this storm which surrounds us all. It is here
in our fear that we can experience the deepest center of grace, the core of
abiding peace. Bless the eternal hurts that bind you eternally to the Father.
Bless them.
Jesus, walk me home,
across the waters to the place You have prepared for me. There You will teach
me everything, because there I will abide most deeply in You. How have I experienced
Your church body? Violently, with both the highest joys and the lowest tears. I
see myself in her as through a mirror darkly- broken and beautiful, full of
promise and pain. Why do You use her to wound me, Father? She is beauty and suffering,
and what is hers is mine. Together we are wrapped up in a story of unfolding
transformation- Your story of the prodigal soul, the spiritual vagabond, the
violence of a sinner’s love. Here in Your church I have been taught to love and
I have learned to hate. I have been broken by betrayal and bought back with
kindness. She is the wilderness, the suffering of 40 days.
How have I been
received by her? With best intentions and violent betrayal. She told me I was
safe, welcomed me into a community that invited me to share my heart. Then, when
I began to reveal my truest self, she sent me away, in her shock and fear unable to
receive me in truth, unequipped to respond to my multitude of needs. She stood passively and silently by
as I suffered the consequence of our broken relationship. It was perhaps her
silence that cut me the deepest. I saw myself as she saw me- broken and in need
of profound healing. I went away from her for a long, sad time. I grieved deeply
as I never had before.
Then her gentler sister
took me in and told me “You are loved”.
She won me back again and restored to me all that had been lost. Jesus healed
me there. Yet my soul was waiting, quietly waiting, for the call to go back home.
And now I hear a whisper in the wind, a change of seasons in the air. “Go to them, daughter, for they will teach
you everything.” So now when I consider opening wide to the church, what
comes up for me? Fear. Doubt. Anger. Hope. Joy. Desire. Longing. The suffering Your church has caused me has lifted my
faith to heights I have never known. She is the garden, the rest on the seventh
day.
I accept the
pain when I take communion with her now, because it reminds me of how much You
love and cherish the parts of myself that no human can see. With You I am fully known- with You, Jesus, as
with no other person. Now I can return to Your church with boundaries
that keep me hedged in from premature claims of safety, with tools to love in
a way that is healthy, and from an abundance of forgiveness for myself
and others. To whom are You calling me in this season? You are calling me home.
To the ones whom I cherish, the ones I fear, the ones my heart calls (imperfect
and messy) family. What other kind of family is there? You are calling me to
the refinement of humility at the communion table, where I will not hear “I am
sorry” but perhaps with time I will hear “you
are loved” as we share the bread and the cup together.
Jesus, I can never
love Your church as I once did. That
love belongs only to You now. But I have a gift I can bring to Your altar-
my prodigal soul, wrapped in grace. “Go to them, daughter, for they will teach
you everything.” Yes, Jesus. I will put down all the treasures that hold me
back. I will say goodbye to the blessings that I no longer need. I will come to
them empty-handed except for myself. No agenda. No expectations. No story. No
words. No needs. No acts of service. I will come as I am, the good motives mixed with the bad, free from performance or
pretending. I don’t need to be seen, to be heard, or to be understood. I just
need to go to my calling, for there You will teach me everything. I will
worship You in their midst, in power and in truth, for in the presence of Your
people my heart is abandoned and my arms open wide to Your love.
They are
looking at me, Father,
but I no
longer need to be seen.
I am hidden in
You, so I am already safe.
Jesus, walk me home
across the waters, to the place You have prepared for me. There You will teach
me everything, because there I will abide most deeply in You.
This journey
belongs only to the One who has redeemed it. To Him alone goes all the glory. While abiding in Him I am safe to belong with His people. Amen.
~Rebecca
