Wounded Healing

Breakdowns seem to make for the best writing days. It’s only after a good cry on the phone with my mom that the words come pouring out. In the brokenness of life I seem to find my voice. It was why I began writing in the first place; to share my brokenness with a world that thinks finding Jesus happens after the mess has been cleared.

It doesn’t.

It’s on the days when I literally cry out to God that he meets me, not on the days when I can manage it all. There is something so beautiful about the mess, about the days that knock the breath right out of me and replace it with something real, something full; need.

I need God on the days when my human capacity meets full and I can’t find another ounce of me to give. I need God when my emotions fly before I can rein them in. It isn’t always pretty and I don’t always handle it well but after a few tears that rub my pride raw I find what I really needed all along was to come to the end of me.

This isn’t just for the addicts and the prostitutes or the clear cut sinners, this desperate need comes from the condition of being human not from the circumstance we are currently wound up in. I left a sinful lifestyle to enter into his arms but my need for a Savior has yet to diminish.

It is In the mess where real relationship are built, in the untidy spaces where I can’t pretend any more.  I can’t help but shake this idea that if mess isn’t happening then relationship isn’t happening because we are by nature a mess of being. Running from God, saying spiteful words, loving ourselves above all else and that’s just my list. I don’t know one person who has left this world unscathed by the hurt inflicted upon them or by them. It’s a fact of life, we’ve screwed so much up and we pay a lot of times for things we never bought.

I think for a long time after I met Jesus I believed the lie that because I knew Jesus I needed to have my act together. Then the waves of life still came and beat me back to my knees where it all started and I was once again reminded that in the mess I am met. It’s the mess that brings me to the end of my performance or capacity to pretend.

What I wanted was a band aid but Jesus came to be the medicine not the covering for our wounds. He came to expose and bring healing to them in a way only he can do. The air of his mercy breathes life into our broken wounded parts and I am so grateful he isn’t a band aid.

Ann Voskamp has taught me in her writing to name gifts. Today I am thankful for breakdowns, tears, and days when I realize my absolute need for God.