moving through suffering, day 1

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well.  At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice.  Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart.  Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me.  In the name of Jesus, the author of our salvation, who was “made perfect through suffering.”  Amen. (JLB)

 

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 121

Scripture for the Day: Hebrews 2:10-18

Reading for Reflection:

In praying about my wounds I have come to believe that the reason these wounds take so long to heal is that I spend more time attacking them than trying to understand them.  I keep trying to clog up the hole made by the wound.  The reality is that I keep stuffing my wound with other addictions, always hoping for some miraculous cure.  The healing needs to happen right there in that broken place because it is there that I am vulnerable.  It is there in that crack in my spirit that the light of Christ can slip through and help me understand the wound.  When Jesus rose, his wounds were still visible.  The scars could be seen right in the midst of the glory.  Is my life, patterned after Christ, to be any different?

     The scars in my life have become my badges of victory and glory.  Some healing has taken place, yet as I pray with these scars I am able to see that I will probably have to live with some of the pain I’ve inherited from my cluttered life.  I am learning to befriend my scars and find the gifts hidden underneath. (Seasons of the Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr)

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: It is Well

 

When peace like a river attendeth my way;

when sorrows like sea billows roll

Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say;

It is well, it is well, with my soul

 

Refrain:

It is well….with my soul…it is well, it is well with my soul

 

My sin O the bliss of this glorious thought;

my sin not in part but the whole

Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more;

praise the Lord, praise the Lord O my soul

 

And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight;

the clouds be rolled back as a scroll

The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend;

even so it is well with my soul

 

Closing Prayer
Father, heal my wounds and make them a source of life for others; as you did with your Son Jesus.  In whose name we pray. Amen. (JLB)