Daring to Suffer

Suffering surrounds us. Heartache, pain, guilt, wrong choices, failures, and shattered dreams are words we fight to flee. What if... these are the very words... the very things we need... to open us up to change... Maybe we are still complacent, still unkind, still loveless, still angry and bitter, unforgiving, stubborn, because we haven’t been shattered.... What if we are meant to suffer... meant to shatter... meant to break... because if we don’t... we will never reach the next step to healing...

What motivates us to love? What breaks down our walls so that we will let people in? Many of us have professions that allow a very thin line to let down our guard. We must all be very cognizant of our level of naitivity and openness because the world we live in is full of evil and hate. Not all of us are exposed to this on the same level and many are strong enough to drown out the "negative side effects" of a very heavy hearted society.

And there is no room for failure... no time to be shattered...but... there comes a day... for each of us... that the silence becomes so loud... and the void becomes so inescapable... we run out of wind.. And are forced to choke down the truth... our own truth... and its entire infallible, glamour less aftertaste...

Many of us are already living in the state of brokenness...we may not live in a cardboard box on a street corner of a large city, but we are stuck in our own box... within four walls... and we are hurting... this IS not a bad thing... when we hurt, we look up... when we fall... we look up... anger will fuel us to attack... but what if we replace that anger with love... if we can learn to love while being shattered... we have gained wisdom far more valuable than what we may read in a book.. Love inspires us to break down our walls... it inspires us to open our hands and give to others.... as the The Love Dare writes "Love gives courage to a coward and wisdom to a fool". Love is that powerful.

When love enters our heart, we are "empowered to endure deeper pain, willing to pay a greater cost". Love allows a man to lay his life down for a friend, to sacrifice all he has for a stranger.... Paul who wrote a large portion of the New Testament was beaten, persecuted, and imprisoned (shattered)... in the darkness of his cell he writes what got him through it... and why he continues to preach about God when he is persecuted.. It’s the most gentle and tender of phrases... "For Christ's love compels us"...

Right now there is a 28 year old American missionary from Arizona in North Korea who walked across the border (illegally) on Christmas day carrying a letter demanding the concentration camps be closed and the political prisoners released... as he stepped over into North Korean territory he shouted "I brought Gods love, God loves you and God bless you"... This is a radical type of love...a love that can be viewed as "blind" or "foolish" but even the smallest of voices can break the deafening silence of hate.....

I hate to say that Jesus wants us to suffer... but what if he does... but not why we think... because we also read that He loves to bless us... every day... daily... What if like we see with teenagers, or our children, or even each other... that sometimes... they have to touch the fire to really "get it"... Maybe you and I are so stubborn that unless we "acquire the fire" we will never move from our seat.......