How Love Wins

I cannot deny that the burden I carry is heavy. When the pain and sorrow and the reality of what has happened washes over me and the ache deep, deep, deep inside wells up within me.

There is this pain of separation. Of brokenness. Of loss of innocence. Of a world come crashing down. 

But there is something so profound within all of this. 

So simple, yet so profound. And more beautiful than words. Beautiful and tragic and deep and pure and real and hard and strange to make sense of. 

Because the Lord knows all of what I feel deep within my heart. He knows it so very personally and intimately...

The Fall. 

And the Cross.

The Father knows the pain of separation. He knows it so, so well. His Heart aches and longs for His People just as I long for my loved ones. He knows what it's like, in the deepest sense, to be separated from the ones His Heart longs for. He knows brokenness. He knows of loss of innocence. He witnessed as the world came crashing down, turning from His Heart. Turning from all what was created to be. 

Wholeness to Brokenness. Beauty to Fallen. Pure to Tainted. 

The Lies. All the Lies which invaded and inured the World He created and loved.

The Lie that God isn't really GOOD. The Lie that we are on our own. The Lie that God isn't for us after all. The Lie that we can do it on our own. 

Rebellion. Disobedience. 

Separation. Death. 

Spiritual Death. 

But that is not the end of the story. He went after our hearts. He did not abandon us in our broken state. He has not abandoned us. He will never abandon us. He will never forsake us.

No...He sent His Son.

And Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to Earth, humbly as a newborn babe. He walked the paths that many weary human feet had tread. He wept. He healed. He spoke. He washed His Disciples feet. He fulfilled the words of the Prophets. He sweat blood in anguish. He submitted His Will to the Father in all that He did. He was brutally beaten, and He died a painful, agonizing death on a Cross for our Sins. And as He cried:

"Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?"

The Father turned His Face away. 

And Jesus Christ, taking on our sin, experienced that very separation from the Father that was ours. He felt our wounds. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. He was pierced for our transgressions. He stepped into the depths of our brokenness and shattered nature and sin. He died for us.

And never was there a darker day in History. But that was not the end of the story. 

Because the stone was rolled away.

He conquered death, in VICTORY. By His Wounds we are healed. Washed clean, by the blood of the Lamb. What a Beautiful Savior. He reconciled our hearts with God. Jesus Christ opened the door, that we may have Relationship. That we may have Life. The Relationship and Life we were created to have with the God of the Universe. That we may walk with Him and know Him and love Him and worship Him as we were created to. 

And as I mourn the loss of many loved ones...as I mourn the wounded state of my heart and soul. As I sit among the ashes...

As I feel in my gut the reality of this very, very broken, thirsty, desperate, longing world. 

I identify with the Father's Heart, I identify with the Cross. And my heart, once separated and broken and far from Him, knows and understands and pursues and longs for His Love and Grace and Truth and Tenderness as never before. My hearts deepest longings stirred and awakened. My Identity found in Him. 

I know now that while my pain is real...it is raw and it is deep; 

It is not the end of me. It is not the end of my relationships with these dear, sweet people. It is not the end of the Story. Redemption falls upon all of this. His Redemption. His Light. His Grace and Love. 

His Holy Spirit dwells within me.

I am still here, in this broken, weary land. My heart is longing for its true Home. But Redemption will come. That Day will Come. My Heart burns within me for that Day. That Eternal Longing burns in my heart and soul. That longing for Jesus. 

²⁵ I know that my redeemer lives, 
   and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed, 
   yet in my flesh I will see God; 
²⁷ I myself will see him 
   with my own eyes—I, and not another. 
   How my heart yearns within me!

-Job 19:25-27

Job spoke this out of his immense grief, and it resounds deeply within me as well.

When I at last look into those eyes. Those eyes, burning with Righteousness, Jealousy, Holiness, Majesty, and Love. The Lion and the Lamb.

Redemption's Song is moving upon the Earth. Seek Him. Seek His Heart. 

May our hearts yearn within us.

How Love Wins

This is how Love wins, every single time

Climbing high upon a tree where someone else should die

This is how Love heals, the deepest part of you

Letting Himself bleed into the middle of your wounds

This is what Love says, standing at the door

You don’t have to be who you’ve been before

Silenced by His voice, death can’t speak again

This is how Love wins.

What Can I Say?

• • Someone I really liked to visit with, and who I have known since I was young and who had strong connections to my childhood passed away on the 31st. I just found out...I don't know how to respond. Please pray for his family...his wife has cancer too...I would visit them every summer. They live in my childhood home. Such wonderful people. 
    
    I just don't get it. How can I even account for all the pain in my heart? Except that Jesus cares, He understands, and His Love is far greater...
    
    That He goes to those deep places with me. That He isn't finished yet. That He will come again in Glory. That He loves us...even to death, death on a cross.
    
    And that He has conquered the grave, and one day He will wipe every tear from our eyes.
    
    He is so Mighty, Victorious, Glorious, Majestic...
    
    and yet so personal...so tender...so kind...
    
    My heart is pierced...and the brokenness of this world is so heavy. But the Lord is STRONG and He bears it all. He bore it all...
    
    There is something so beautifully profound about suffering and sorrow...that He went to those depths, that He pulled us out of those depths...
    
    So that what was broken may be made whole in Him. What was lost may be found. What was weak may be made strong.
    
    He is unsearchable. Glorious. Beautiful. Mighty.
    
    He consumes it all.
    
    IT IS NOT ENOUGH for us … within the arena of the world's pain merely to know of a God who sympathizes. It is not even enough to know of a God who heals. We need to know of and be connected with a God who experiences with us, for us, each grief, each wound. We need to be bonded with a God who has had nails in the hands and a spear in the heart!
    Flora Slosson Wuellner, Weavings
    
    
    
    
    
    I want to know Him more.