for the broken hearts

Listen brokenhearted one:

Your lover said, “I love you because.”

Jesus says, “I love you in spite of.”

Your lover said, “You are beautiful.”

Jesus says, “You were broken, you were lost, you were dirty, you were dead.”

Your lover promised, “I’ll love you until I die.”

Jesus says, “I died so you don’t have to.”

Your lover loved the fact that you returned their love.

Jesus loved you when you rejected Him and spit in His face.

Your lover’s love faded when you were unlovable.

Christ’s love is not based in who you are, but in who He is, and so it cannot be shaken.

Your lover asks you to fix things about yourself.

Jesus redeemed you, washed you, raised you, ransomed you, and continues to work in you.

Your lover hurt you.

Jesus was hurt for you.

Your lover let you down.

Jesus will never fail you.

Your lover broke your heart.

Christ binds up the brokenhearted.

His love will not diminish or grow weary of you. His is not a selfish love or a small love or a finite love. Don’t be afraid. In His arms, your heart is truly safe.

Whiskey Flats Rodeo

I guess in the big scheme of life a weekend away is a little thing, but when one comes it can make all the difference in the world.

This weekend we escaped the city and drove to Lake Isabella for the Whiskey Flats Rodeo in Kernville–just my sister, Karla, Katie, and me. Also four pairs of dirty old well-loved boots, and one big white truck. Katie and Karla’s very kind and hospitable grandparents let us stay with them. The first day we paid to get in (which was weird…I don’t think I’ve ever had to pay for a rodeo before) and the second day we parked across the street and sat in the truckbed and watched over the fence. It was fun to wander the town and the quirky booths and make Mr. and Mrs. G biscuits and gravy and watch chick flicks on Saturday night and NASCAR with Mr. G and brave the chilly air with wild rags and Carhartts. But mostly it was just the best to get away from school and the city and get that much-missed taste of home.

I guess rodeo is kind of the same no matter where you are. Some of the competitors were from up where I live, and even the announcer and entertainment clown were the guys who work my hometown rodeo. It’s a small world.

praying 1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

FATHER, May my testimony be defined not by hollow acts of self-righteousness and attempts to earn Your favor and the approval of others, but a true Christ-like love that gives when no one sees, a love that does not seek its own exaltation, a love that does not search for the places of glamor, a love that motivates every action of my life and everything I do.

4 Love is patient

Lord give me a quiet heart of patience.  May I rely on You and Your perfect timing, resting in complete trust, so that I live by Your time schedule, and not my own.

and kind;

Help me to be kind.  Characterize my attitude with gentleness and meekness.  May I never seek to look good at the expense of others.  Help my first priority be the well-being of my neighbor, and help me to show this priority in my words and attitudes and actions.

love does not envy

Help me to rejoice when You bless others, and help me to trust You with my future so that I never feel threatened by the success of my neighbor, because I am convinced Your plans for me are good.

or boast;

And when blessings come to me, let me never use these as an opportunity to put others down and puff myself up, knowing that if I have anything at all, it is only because You are good to me, and has nothing to do with my own worthiness.

it is not arrogant

Mark me by humility and when I speak may it be to glorify You and build others up.  Help me to never compare myself to others.  May You alone be my standard.

5 or rude.

Help me to be gracious with everyone I meet, so that when unbelievers hear of You, the Christians they have known will bear testimony to the reality of genuinely changed hearts and transformed lives exhibited in the everyday moments of life.

It does not insist on its own way;

Help me to be deferential and willing to put my own preferences and agendas aside for someone else.

it is not irritable

Let me never think of myself so highly that I get easily frustrated with the failings of others.  Let me remember the many times I have failed, and been forgiven. May I always remember how much You forebear in loving me, and may I love others with the same grace.

or resentful;

Kill every grudge I hold in my heart, even those of which I am unaware.  Wipe clean the record of wrongs I store in my mind.  When others sin against me, help me to forgive as You have forgiven me, and then help me to let go that I never hold the past against my neighbor.

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Sin is an offense against You, and it hurts everyone who is touched by it.  Excusing sin, laughing at sin, ignoring sin, or praising sin is therefore unloving.  Help me to encourage what is holy and pure and true (Philippians 4:8).  Help me never to–for the sake of saving myself from awkwardness, embarrassment, or scorn–directly or indirectly encourage those things which You abhor.  Help me to understand that overlooking wrongdoing is not love, but is effectually hating my neighbor.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

When interactions with others leave me broken, hurt, and bruised–even then help me to keep loving.  When I have reason to be offended, help me to forgive.  When I am injured, help me to turn the other cheek.  When I am treated wrongly, help me to forgive, even as You forgave Your murderers while You hung on their cross and died in their place.  When I do not know the motive behind an action, even if there are ten sinful explanations and only one righteous one, help me to believe the best.  Help me never to lose hope for others.  You saved me–the chief of sinners–I know You can save and restore anyone.  Help me to endure persecution because You endured death for me.  Help me to chose to love when the world calls me insane, because You loved me with a cosmically crazy love that shed the privileges of divinity in order to wear my scars.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Until I see You face-to-face, let my life be marked by love more than anything else.  Such an inexplicable love could have only one origin: You.  So when the world sees me, may they see the hand that enables Heaven’s love in this sinner’s heart.  Apart from You, I can do nothing.  Love is the stamp of my Savior, because apart from You, it is utterly impossible.  Fill me with impossible love, so the world may see and know that YOU ARE GOD.

Because of Jesus’ love I have access to Your throne, and so it is in His Name I pray.  Amen.

Valentine’s Day!

Vintage valentines courtesy of Pinterest!

I don’t understand why some people hate Valentine’s Day.  I mean, I’m single, but the amount of happy people and free candy in the world makes February 14th awesome regardless of relationship status.  I’ve pretty much subsisted on sugar today.  And between helping my sister get ready for her date and all the sweet things people have done…I think I’ve said “awww” like 500 times.  And my heart is all warm and fuzzy and stuff.

Hope you know how loved you are this Valentine’s!!

protoevangelium

My anthropology homework on the origin of sin for my theology class just blew my mind.

As death entered the newly-created universe, Adam and Eve quivering pathetically in coverings of leaves, even then as the good gifts of the Father were stained by man’s rebellion and our first parents turned their back on the benevolent majesty of their Creator, in that darkest of all moments, God in His incredible grace promised to save us.  Genesis 3:15 is the passage theologians call “protoevangelium”–the first gospel.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

It’s amazing to think that the divine saga of human redemption began on the heels of the first act of sin and treason against God. The Father’s first response to the destruction of His creation was to promise the incarnation and death of His own son to save the very persons who had just rejected Him. Moments later, He would kill an animal–the first death–in order to cover Adam and Eve with its skin. Four thousand years later, Jesus Christ the Lamb of God would die in our place, that His righteousness might cover us and make us acceptable to the Father.

When Eve followed the advice of the serpent, she had, in effect, made a league of friendship with the devil.  God now graciously substituted enmity for that friendship, in effect saying to Eve, Though you have just turned your back on me by eating of the forbidden fruit, I will still continue to be a friend to you; I will continue to be on your side.  God’s first response to human sin, therefore, is a response of grace.

–Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image

Grace upon grace upon grace.  This is the legacy of humanity throughout the ages: the unfailing, persistent, never-ending grace and forgiveness of God toward us.  Peter asked Christ if 7 times forgiveness was enough before giving up.  Praise God that His forgiveness has no such limit!  We would all receive what we deserve–eternity separate from Him.  Yet, though the Devil accuses us before the Father night and day (Revelation 12:10), because Christ took our punishment, He can say of every sin: PAID IN FULL.

This is the victory promised in Genesis 3:15–this is the gospel.  As Hoekema says, “All the rest of the Bible will be an unfolding of the contents of this marvelous promise.”

the only sanctuary for our souls.

Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) once said, “Do not look for a sanctuary in anyone except your self.”

It is the same idea that has founded every monastery and convent: if we could just escape the world we could find sinless bliss, simplicity, and peace.

But I’ve learned after much running that this self is what plagues me.  It is what I’m trying to escape.

Because the evil is not “out there”–it is inside of me.  The disease is not found in cities and public places but in the human soul.  We are the source of the distress in this world.  We are not the sanctuary, we are the storm itself.

All the world can hope for is the promise of some peace found deep inside.  Jaded, hurt, and bruised, we withdraw into ourselves, believing there must be no other port or shelter in this world worthy of trust except the body we were born with.  Yet so often we find in ourselves our own worst enemy.

And to this ageless human quest for peace, Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

And though the world says, “Find yourself,” Jesus says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

When times are hard and the world is overwhelming and people hurt me, I want to run away.  It’s easy for me to run…miles or cities or countries under my feet, distancing myself from the pain.  But my Savior says, “Run to Me.”  Peace is found not in digging deeper, but in being washed clean.  Purpose is found not in our hearts but in new hearts.  Redemption is in what He did, not in doing better.

Even of humanity in its original sinless state God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”  We need each other: we were not created to be autonomous, but to live in community.  And in the gracious work of Christ, we find this community possible.

He is the answer to my soul’s sickness.  He is the voice that calms the storms inside of me.  And He is the bridge across which I can meet every other man and woman: I can handle rejection or friendship or ill-treatment or love or anything life brings me because in Him I am already fully loved and forgiven and accepted.  He is the Prince of Peace, who brokered peace for me with my own soul and with others.  He is my rock, my shelter, my hiding place, and under the pinions of the everlasting wings, I am safe no matter where I am.

This is what I’ve been learning lately.

lessons in world literature

“Deep in the heart there dwells relentless care
And secretly infects us with despair;
Restless, she sways and poisons peace and joy
She always finds new masks she can employ:
She may appear as house and home, as child and wife,
As fire, water, poison, knife—
What does not strike, still makes you quail,
And what you never lose, for that you always wail.”
-Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

God grant me a loose grip on the blessings You have given me: that while they remain I might enjoy them, and if You chose to take them I might say, “You give and You take away: even so, blessed be Your name.”