Rolling In
Call it weird. Call it what you like, but the words that come to me tonight don’t all seem to fit into paragraphs. Broken words about being broken? I didn’t plan it! Promise! Just bear with me…(experimenting…AKA learning)
It’s hard to roll into church.
No matter the church. No matter who you are.
The first time, you feel every ounce of your broken…
Every bit of your dependence,
Every bit of your DIFFERENT.
But Joseph’s abandonment in a well, followed by slavery, AND imprisonment was his pathway to...joy?
We are, all of us,
broken.
Some of us good at patching.
Some of us paint a pretty face on.
Some of us just can’t.
But our breaking? What if it is THE thing that leads to being WHOLE.
Patching and painting don’t make us whole.
Even replacing a grimace with a smile…
illusion. temporary.
Whole is being filled.
It’s in overflowing,
allowing living water to be poured in.
Once it starts, the water doesn’t stop.
There is always enough.
You are broken.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Broken is the beginning.
You are a vessel MEANT to pour.
I am meant to spill out water,
To nourish life around me,
To bring growth.
Broken…
there is beauty in being filled,
in overflowing,
in watering,
in the cracks that can pour forth life-giving water,
in seeing the blossoms nourished,
in seeing the growth,
miraculous growth.
Life comes for the pouring out.
No, the vessel cannot take applause.
Applause is due to the water,
the sun,
the soil?
It’s due to God that brings them,
the God that uses broken vessels,
the God that loves broken vessels,
the God that nourishes broken vessels,
the God that let his son be broken,
to heal – to make whole.
Then we roll in, broken,
to embrace the “love that will not let us go.”
I wrote this thing…Backyard Mission: Empathy a while back. Tonight I got to see real glimmers of a dream and prayer I barely dared hope for.
A year ago, licking deep wounds, I began to pray for loving outreach to special needs families within our church…in our town.
Tonight I saw it happening! People getting trained to help special needs kids, people volunteering to provide respite care, a teacher that volunteered to move up every grade with my son in Sunday School… The parents of the autistic twins. (Due to the “flight risk” that their kids pose, they’ve been unable to attend church together for FIVE years.) They aren’t the only ones. And THOSE parents, their kids attend school 2 hours away, and THEY are volunteering their time to get this ministry off the ground!!!!
When my kids were swimming tonight it occurred to me. Letting them wear their “swimmies” all the time isn’t good for them. They need to feel their dependence. They need to know their need of us. And so it is with God…
Rolling in,
Pushing past the pain,
Letting the breaks give way to prayer,
Letting the burn build strength that is not my own,
Seeing God working in a body of people,
Seeing the hands that He uses to care for His people…
No words for this.
“Beauty” doesn’t touch it.
Just tears…
a Rearranged Life 
This is just beautiful! Thank you for sharing and being honest and open and real.
Encouragement to spur me on! Thanks so much for stopping in!
Beautiful, poignant, astonishing, *true* words. I love seeing people like you who are willing to “be the change” for those who need more. Because, really, we all need more of Him, and we are all the church. We can learn to especially need one another through all of our special needs, and know that He has provided the enough in Himself and through His people. … Love you, M!
Amen, Robyn!!! “He has provided enough in Himself and through His people.” RIGHT ON!!! So glad to have these bits of interaction with you, friend!
This is a beautiful entry. So true, so poignant. So hard to accept my brokenness and yet the Life flows from it. Miriam, keep listening, keep looking, keep believing, keep writing. Love you. -deb