(C) Cheryl Howard 2008

Anguish. It is a lonely place,

It isolates, obscuring sight of other’s face.

Blurs ones vision, as you try to run your race,

Sends you reeling like some drunken basket-case.

 

 

Its roots reach deep into your soul,

Threaten brokenness – will you ever be whole?

Heard so often, ‘With the punches in life roll’,

Where is healing for your heart so inconsoled?

 

 

Impatience! In their eyes do they disclose,

And the grief inside of you, it just froze,

Oh their words, ‘Get up, move on’, they slap you round,

You are trying, but someone else they shift the ground!

 

 

Despair and hopelessness – you have they found,

Failure, death and sorrow their grating sound!

If you’ll survive, then you must go to HIM who knows,

To the ONE, who gives you life when HE arose,

For it’s those with broken lives, the ones HE chose!

 

 

 

thought for the journey …

Oh the comfort that it brings to know that JESUS - our LORD and SAVIOR, our Heavenly Bridegroom, our Friend, our Brother - our GOD, never turns away from us in tiresome irritation at our struggles, nor does HE shrug HIS shoulders in helplessness, unable or unwilling to help us. HE alone can and will relieve us of our burdens - if we will release them!

Psalm 73:26 “My flesh and my heart fail; but GOD is the strength of my heart and my portion forever!”

 

HE is full of longsuffering and patience - how blessed are we that this is so! 1 Corinthians 13 - the famed chapter on love, “Love is patient, love is kind ….”, is a description of Who GOD is, of What HE is like, for “GOD is love!” (1 John 4:16b)

 

There are times when we find the ‘ugliness’ of one another (especially if it’s directed towards us) too much to bear, and more than anything we want to run away and be free of them …. we can’t cope with it, and there are times when it is we who are full of ‘ugliness’ and others want to steer a very wide path around us (and we know how much that hurts) … Oh that we would learn to be like our SAVIOR, to stand lovingly and patiently by one another in our difficult seasons … 

 

For our LORD loves us and sticks by us even when there’s much that’s ‘ugly’ inside us. HE doesn’t say, “Yuk, I’m sick of being around you and your stinky attitides. I’m out of here, I want to get as far away from you as possible, I don’t want to get too close to you because I see stuff in you that’s ugly and foul and so far from MY standards and ways - and you’re too dull and blind to even realise it’s there!”

No, instead HE lovingly corrects and challenges us, HE enables us to change and HE pours HIS love in and upon us - therefore when we’re confronted with the ugliness in other’s lives (that they haven’t yet seen or dealt with, or yet ’cleaned up’) HE expects us likewise to stick by them and keep loving them; not to ‘agree’ with what might be wrong, but to show unconditional love and to gently reprove or counsel when and if HE provides the opportunity, and to speak the truth fearlessly in love! We’re not to seek to distance ourselves just because their ‘ugly’ areas may make our life difficult or uncomfortable, or they cost us and cause us pain, suffering or sorrow - GOD sticks resolute by us when we cause HIM pain, suffering and sorrow, and HE desires for us to be like JESUS in conduct and character! (And we are as guilty as each other in our ‘ugliness’ - whereas our faithful LORD and SAVIOR is sinless and perfect, so if anyone has the right to object - it is HE!)

NO, our Great and Gracious, Longsuffering SAVIOR does not abandon us - HE sticks steadfast by our side, enduring our ‘ugliness’ and gently speaks Words of Life to our shattered souls, and through it all HIS purpose and motivation is Love for us, and desire for our wholeness (and holiness!) in HIM!

 

1 John 4:11 “Beloved, if GOD so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”