I sat on the massive porch with a steaming cup of coffee and a sleepy mini poodle in my lap. I sipped the marvelous liquid while the sun peeked over the evergreens and lit the mist rising off the pond. Who knew I would be living here? This place is beyond anything I could have ever dreamed up.
I set my cup down, picked up my Bible and wiped a tear from a weep worn cheek. As with so many things in life, this ministry is born of pain. In the midst of God handing us the most stunning property I have ever seen, my own heart lay in peices. My own life shattered, I sat there, trying not to cry.
Loss is the hardest thing to navigate. Poverty can change to riches. Lonliness can expire with companionship. Fading seasons will find their way back. But loss? Loss is not fixable. Loss of loved ones. Loss of innocence. Loss of the belief that the world really is a good place. Loss must be navigated so that what we believe will never come back, but is not really lost, only hiding from us, can be sought out and brought home.
Hope, love, trust, safety, belief. They may seem gone forever. They are not. They are wounded. They may be invisible. They can hide behind anger and bitterness, but they are a part of the image of God born in us when he stitched us together. We can find them again.
The work of healing is not easy. It is, however, the most rewarding thing I have ever seen anyone experience. I have spent 30 years taking people in pain to the God who knows them so intimately that he is the only one who can bring them through. And he does, again and again.
You may roll your eyes. God? Heal? C'mon. But it is true, it is real, and it is life changing. I know. He has healed me more than once. He will meet with us in our pain. He will understand. He will make things different.
I know. My heart is broken. It needs healing.
I opened my Bible and called a trusted coach. Through tears I bared my ripped up heart.
And then I asked God for help.
Are you hurting?
Come.
We will take you to him.
I, the Lord, am your healer
~Exodus 15:26b
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