broken, thursday

Thursday, April 3

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

Opening Prayer: O persistent God, deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.  Pressure me that I may grow more human, not through the lessening of my struggles, but through the expansion of them…Deepen my hurt until I learn to share it and myself openly, and my needs honestly.  Sharpen my fears until I name them and release the power I have locked in them and they in me.  Accentuate my confusion until I shed those grandiose expectations that divert me from the small, glad gifts of the now and the here and the me.  Expose my shame where it shivers, crouched behind the curtains of propriety, until I can laugh at last through my common frailties and failures, laugh my way toward becoming whole. (Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder)

Daily Scripture Reading: Luke 22:54-62       

Reading for Reflection:

     The first response, then, to our brokenness is to face it squarely and befriend it.  This may seem quite unnatural.  Our first, most spontaneous response to pain and suffering is to avoid it, to keep it at arm’s length; to avoid, circumvent or deny it.  Suffering—be it physical, mental or emotional—is almost always experienced as an unwelcome intrusion into our lives, something that should not be there.  It is difficult, if not impossible, to see anything positive in suffering; it must be avoided away at all costs.

     When this is, indeed, our spontaneous attitude toward brokenness, it is no surprise that befriending it seems, at first, masochistic.  Still, my own pain in life has taught me that the first step to healing is not a step away from the pain, but a step toward it.  When brokenness is, in fact, just as intimate a part of our being as our chosenness and our blessedness, we have to dare to overcome our fear and become familiar with it.  Yes, we have to find the courage to embrace our own brokenness, to make our most feared enemy into a friend and to claim it as an intimate companion.  I am convinced that healing is often so difficult because we don’t want to know the pain.  Although this is true of all pain, it is especially true of the pain that comes from a broken heart.  The anguish and agony that result from rejection, separation, neglect, abuse and emotional manipulation serve only to paralyze us when we can’t face them and keep running away from them.  When we need guidance in our suffering, it is first of all guidance that leads us closer to our pain and makes us aware that we do not have to avoid it, but can befriend it. (Life of the Beloved by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                         
Closing Prayer: Lord God, thank you that it is in my brokenness that you meet me and do something within me that could be done no other way.  Thank you for loving me enough to break me, so that you can remake me, more and more into your image.  In the name of Jesus.