Jesus Loves YOU!

Jesus Loves YOU!

My heart became heavy as tears welled up in my eyes and a weight from the pit of my stomach consumed me from a beginning understanding of love.    The words that Kevin Riordon spoke from across the table at an Alpha Bible study kept coming back speaking to me.  Jesus Loves You.  Jesus Loves You.  Jesus Loves YOU!  I struggled to hear these words several weeks ago on March 21, especially coming from a male figure.  I was there but not there, as I fought so hard with being vulnerable yet protecting my heart and myself.  I quickly refused prayer as my thoughts and belief I had come to form is that I don’t have enough right or in order for God to do something or meet me where I am instead of me meeting him halfway.  Those words never left me, as I still tried to grasp the level of this concept.  Yes, I knew Jesus loved me, but I came to believe Jesus loved me with conditions because of the lies that I formed and accepted from my past.  Honestly, if Jesus is a male figure I was not sure how much I wanted to let Jesus love me.  To me, that represented a level of hurt and trust I did not want to deal with.

As the words continued resonating and speaking audibly in my mind, I tried to go about preparing myself for the day by heading to the shower.  There is something about the shower for me that has become a place of releasing grief, tears, and emotions.  Today was different in that I was hit by seeing my past hurts from others as brokenness.  Those that have hurt and that I have hurt are all broken in some way.  I became consumed as a picture of Jesus looking down from the cross in anguish noticing the broken pieces of each life and saying “See that piece?  Look at the beauty that still remains in its brokenness.  I hang here for each piece represented.”   As I wept, the picture and revelation continued, as I saw him cry out to his father, saying “why have you forsaken me?”   The revelation became real as I saw how he took what was perfect and allowed it to become broken and scarred.  God could not take the anguish of watching brokenness of his son unfold for a fallen broken world.  He knew that in order to write the story of redemption and love, he had to allow brokenness and loss to happen to his perfect gift.  A gift, which up until the cross, carried no scars.

As I kept reflecting the weight of my own brokenness and how he allowed me to become so broken, unknown, and completely losing myself and others.  He knew the greater purpose would one day unfold a different understanding of love, forgiveness, and redemption.  As he pointed out those pieces from the cross I could see and hear in the tears, “see that broken beautiful piece?”, “I am here”.   I wept at the concept that in all of my brokenness, anger, craziness, etc. that he allowed in order to do something new he anguished for me in love.  He saw all my broken pieces and the broken pieces of others while he hung on the cross alone (and without his father) for me. 

In the past week, I had started praying; let me begin to see glimpses of your love and forgiveness.  I did not expect to become pain-free for several hours just to become attacked with pain in different ways I did not expect.  But he knew if I remained pain-free, I would become busy.  So in the pain and misery, I chose not to forget what I saw him doing, even though I was questioning my debilitating level of pain and headaches.  It forced me to slow down and further learn to Be Still and Rest in him.  As I did that and over the past couple days, just merely asking to become more aware of my thoughts as I want to learn not to carry the pain of my past to the future.  I kept asking let me continue to see glimpses of you and your love in my life. 

In all honesty, I am not quite sure I was ready for the gut wrenching sickness and emotions that would  almost brought me to my knees as I gripped the shower wall with my head between my hands consumed by the words, Jesus Loves YOU!

Looking at my own brokenness and understanding another level of beautifully broken, I wondered to myself how many opportunities of showing and expressing love is missed because of brokenness.  When do we (I certainly don’t) tell others they are loved and accepted for their brokenness?  Do we let others know they are beautiful?  We are all Beautifully Broken pieces lying at the foot of a cross that now represents scars of love and redemption.  Beautifully Broken scars.  Scars that now write a different story of unconditional love and sacrifice.