Eesh! What now!

Have you ever felt like this chair? I have. Broken. I ignored my brokeness. Thinking that if I just kept cruizing along that the bits that fell off would not be noticed.

Then BAM! I found that I lost a few too many pieces. And I was hanging on by a nail.

This is when I realized I did not have any real answers and this scared me. So I turned to Jesus and asked tentatively, "I need help. Can you help me?" While asking I wondered if He would reject my fumbling foolish ways and in doing so... reject me.

He didn't.

I was embraced. Loved. Cared for. And gently spoken too.

What is this?!? Perhaps it's a ____? You fill in the blank. For I know you have been in similar places of brokeness.

Do you keep it a secret? Hope that know one will find out? Think: If "they" don't find out then I'm safe.

Or have you gone to someone about a place of brokeness? Did you find help or judgement? Healing or hurt?

My friend Jesus, He meets you where you are. Loves you. Tends to your woundness. Gently speaks words of healing to your hurting heart. And gives you a new way of living.

In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost. -Matthew 18: 14

You are only one pray from a loving home, where you are missed.

Go back home, just the way you are. Don't walk. Run! He'll meet you with wide open arms. His name is Jesus.

Rustlers

What do you desire?

How are you trying to get it? Was there ever a time when you got what your heart desired but it lost it's lustre disapointingly fast?

Poor chair. It was beautiful. It had purpose. Someone created it with love.

It got wobbly. Started to fade. Got turfed outside! Out in the elements where the rain did not value it, the hot sun scorched it, and the cold and hot air prepared it for a $5.00 sticker price.

Just like the chair we each have a story. Some of us are weary and wobbly because we have sold ourselves to cruel masters who have no regard for our purpose. They did not shine love down on us to quench our desires. No, their attentions only faded us. We feel that the world has hung a $5.00 ticket sale on us.

Still our desires burn within us and we try to fill it with things we think we want. We get a distraction for a while but our own efforts fade us just a little bit more. So where can we go to get our deepest desires fulfilled?

Verse to mull around: John 10:7-10

"I'll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good-sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for-will freely go in and out, and find pature.
(The Message)

Brokeness

This poor chair. Forgotten out in the weather of Ontario. Dried out, cracked, and broken. A flicker of hope: It's owner sees it. O happy day! The next moments reveal a dark truth: It has no value to it's owner. Roughly handled, it's thrown into the truck and taken to the flea market. At the market it sits in the hot September sun, naked, with all it's flaws laid out. It's not a thing of beauty. It's ugly in all its brokeness. Who will want it?

We love because he first loved us.
1John 4:19