Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.
Scripture – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here.”- 2 Corinthians 5:17
Insight: I read a book once that had a profound impact on my Christian Faith. It was in this book where I first heard the phrase that “the spiritual life begins with the acceptance of our wounded self.” What exactly did this mean? I prayed on it for a long time and finally the Holy Spirit made it perfectly clear to me: Christ cannot begin to heal us until we are willing to be vulnerable and bring all of our “hidden” secrets, pains and wounds into the light and then let Him go to work on restoring us. What did this mean for me? It meant that in the darkest night of my soul, when I was most truthful with who I really was and am, God was allowed to enter into a meaningful relationship with me through Jesus Christ and begin real healing and restoration.I was maybe for the first time in my life willing to to be completely open and vulnerable with the self-loathing and pain I felt as a result of having no relationship with my earthly father from which I could draw any self-esteem, and to turn that pain and anger over to God so He could begin to heal my brokenness. It was painful, but it was cathartic.
I had been running from my pain by fleeing from my own reality through any means possible, and by manufacturing a false self that I could more easily present to the world. People would ask me how I was, and I would say the socially acceptable answer “doing good” when inside I was empty or dead. It was all a façade.This was the first time ever I had decided to stop running and just turn it all over to God. I decided it was ok to not be ok. I heard him tell me to be still and to know I am God (Psalm 46:10) followed by that He was my real Father and He loved me and that I was fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139)! That changed everything for me. I found that Jesus offered a safe place of refuge for me to go and process my self-loathing. He offered me the boundless compassion, infinite patience and unimaginable forgiveness, love and grace that I needed.He keeps no score of our wrongs, but restores our hope for the future. When I was filled with self-loathing and without purpose and meaning in my life for 25 years, it didn’t feel momentary. But after I was willing to be vulnerable and let Christ begin His reclamation project on me, suddenly it did seem like my entire journey through the valley of pain and self-loathing had been a momentary detour, part of a bigger plan of my path to redemption and true freedom. I found that in God’s army, only the wounded soldiers can fight. Be willing to be vulnerable. It is the first step to an amazing transformation of being able to see yourself, maybe for the very first time, the way God does, as His precious and beloved child.
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