Raw

I feel like there was an old me who has died.

This new me, well, I don’t know what to do with her. She has different ideas. Different thoughts. Meshing her with the old way of life doesn’t work. God is pushing her to grow and do. But do what, where?

She is no longer content to sit on the sidelines. She doesn’t want to stay away from all controversy. She doesn’t want to stay in her safe world and make sure nothing bad happens. She doesn’t want to stay quiet and not offend anyone.

But what does any of that mean? How does she go about changing? How does she match up who she is becoming without losing everything from the old life?

God has been putting ideas in her heart. Things she hasn’t said out loud in fear. Fear that they won’t happen and fear that they will. She knows that if God wants them to come to life through her, He will open doors.

She longs to reach out to people hurting. She wants to cry with them. To listen to them. To sing with them. To help them be brave.

She knows she will get more out of it than they will. She knows God will show up in a big way. She knows He will help her show love in the way He made her to.

For too long she has sat idly by in her own little world. That was what she needed to prepare for the future. She has done little bits to help others. Enough to assuage any guilt she felt. But then God ripped off the Band-Aid. He made her feel pain for the marginalized and forgotten. He exposed what was underneath. There are people who feel unloved by their family, by their country, and by the God who created them. She cries for them. She wants to be part of healing, not division.

Raw. Tender. She is realizing the wound is supposed to stay raw. There will be no healing if she is to be effective. Her heart needs to bleed for them.

She is done hiding. Done pretending. She is ready when He is.

 

 

Congratulations to the winner of Jen Hatmaker’s Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity. It goes to Franky Hartman! May it wreck you in the way it is meant to, to do the most good. 

 

 

Linking with the Saturday Soiree Blog Party.