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Home Archive for January 2016

There are other ways Jesus could've saved the world
Ones that wouldn't end up with Him dead
Could have done it with an order from the throne of God
But He did it with a broken heart instead
So I'll take a broken heart
Because a broken heart is better than one that doesn't feel.
- Andy Gullahorn


No one likes pain.

That is a given.

Pain hurts (duh). It's uncomfortable, needy, and demands attention. It is inconvenient and is usually really hard work. It often an intense trial to overcome that leaves scars, both emotional and physical. Yet bizarrely, the most intrinsic beauty in this world is often born out of the most profound pain.

I am intrigued by this. I'm currently reading through the book of Job, and as I ponder his agony and reflect on the lessons he learnt, I am struck by how beautiful the process is.

Wow, that must sound morbidly weird. Did I just say pain is beautiful?

Well... Yes.

I think about the things that are painful; things that me cry. Like death. Death is incredibly beautiful.

I cry without fail at the end of Charlotte's Web — every time — when Wilbur is loaded into the truck, and Charlotte barely whispers: 'Goodbye... My sweet, sweet Wilbur...' who manages to reply with a choked 'I love you Charlotte', and she closes her eyes for the last time.

I cry listening to the haunting melody of the Titanic soundtrack, imagining those final moments people had with their loved ones as the boat was going down: alone and silent, so acutely aware that death was only minutes away. The depths of emotion they must have felt, I cannot comprehend.

I cry in Cinderella, when the king is dying and he looks dearly at the prince to murmur quietly, 'I love you, son'. The purity of those final words makes my soul ache within me.

Death and pain are so beautiful, yet beauty by itself can be painful. Sometimes I am so struck by the profound grace and radiance of something, that I cry from the sheer splendour of it.

I can get teary watching a glorious sunset, the light shimmering across the sky in an unfathomable array of colours and clouds.

I will bawl at weddings (I have witnesses). There is something so intrinsic, so holy about seeing two people choose to lay their lives down for each other in the sight of God and man. It strikes at something deep inside my heart, and I can't explain why it hurts in such a beautiful moving way.

I cried watching Inside Out when Bing-Bong faded away. It was the loss of childish wonder, the loss of pure imagination; it was that something that dies in all of us as we grow up and become adults. It is something we never regain, and it's so sad.

For those of you who may be starting to scoff at these words, let me assure you that I'm not glossing over pain with a shiny veneer in calling it beautiful. Pain is also incredibly ugly, especially when it is by the hand of Satan. I'm incapable of wrapping my brain around the intense agony many people have experienced, whether by acute illness, physical and/or emotional abuse of all extremes, and grief so deep it knows no end. That kind of pain is impossible for me to fully comprehend, and equally as impossible to escape by one's own strength.

So I must confess that during my own seasons of pain, I was not able to see a shred of beauty. The grief of loved ones dying, betrayal, heartbreak, shattered dreams, or even bearing the pain of others through their own traumatic experiences left my soul empty and dry, as though a vacuum took the place of my heart. Like a ball and chain around my foot, the pain was a constant companion reminding me that life was not the way it was meant to be. Every morning I awoke and - for a split second - would have relief; just before everything crashed back down again, the realization almost as painful as the hurt itself. There was no joy, only the hope for the distant future; hope that the distance would lessen the pain.

As time passed, the pain did fade, and now that I'm on the other side of it, I feel like God is more able to teach me about the beauty found within it; to show me that some of the best lessons I've ever learnt were taught to me whilst I was in the throes of the deepest pain. Pain in and of itself may not be beautiful, just as dirt is not much to look at. It is not the dirt that is beautiful, but more what it yields. Pain is the same way if we put it in the hands of the Gardener. He can use our pain to grow the most intrinsic beauty. Instead of hardening us, pain in God's hands can keep our hearts soft and receptive to the pain of others. Instead of causing us to go underground, God can take our pain and give us the most profound love for others who have experienced the same hurt. Going through pain can reap rewards of beauty if we trust that God will not waste it. The places where we break become not only doorways for God to enter and make beautiful, but they become entrances to each other's heart in order to build one another up and encourage each other in our times of pain. 

Like Job, though he suffered much pain at the hands of Satan, God used it to give him a deeper and fuller knowledge of Who He was, and a closer relationship with Him. God uses whatever pain we experience for His good purpose if we surrender it to Him. Whilst pain is not from God, it is only by His power that we overcome and see the good He wrought through it. Will we always recognize it? No. Maybe I'll come back and read this post one day and tell my former self I didn't have a clue. Maybe a couple of years after that, I'll come back and recognize with hindsight that I was right after all.

Often when we think of pain and suffering it's easy to point an accusing finger at the sky and ask God why He isn't doing His job. Yet we forget that He Himself experienced the same pain. Betrayal, grief, the cross - they barely sum up what Jesus must have suffered as a man on earth. Given the choice between heavenly bliss and human suffering, Jesus still chose our pain "for the joy set before Him" (Heb. 12:2).


Isn't that saying something?

Could pain really reap a reward of beauty and joy that we are yet to fathom?

I believe so. We serve a God that makes broken things beautiful. I pray that He helps me to always look for the beauty in pain, and that I never allow my heart to harden to a place where I can no longer feel either pain or joy. May I ever allow Him to have His way in my life, transforming all my brokenness into beauty, and to readily recognize His understanding hand in every part of my life...

Even in the pain.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me... to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
- Psalm 61:1&3



This video inspired many of my thoughts surrounding this post. Well worth watching.



If asked how I felt about the end of this year, I would have to say that it feels like I'm inside a snowglobe. I guess that's a strange reply, so I suppose I should go back to the beginning in order to explain.

The year of 2015 was one that opened with so much promise. For some reason, it was one of the first years in a long time that I was eagerly anticipating. This year is going to be epic, my friends and I exulted together. I've got a good feeling about it. January had barely begun when heartache and grief struck us all: friends and family alike suffered from great loss, and the sorrow of broken hearts and dreams. Questions floated up out of the mire, our own voices coming back to haunt us: what happened to the year full of promise we all felt it would be? Where was the good in this?

Clawing out of the pain by hanging onto the cross, I learnt things. Hard things. Things about loving people who hurt you and honesty and what it truly means to be an authentic soul. I learnt about more aspects of God's love (an eternal quest) and how to surrender my life even more fully than I thought possible. I learnt death by living; that to live, one must die to the flesh, pouring yourself out for the sake of others. I spent much of this year with a bruised, battered, and bleeding soul that continually cast itself on the mercy of God as a drowning man throws himself up onto the shore. Yet it was all learning. Continually learning, and growing...

Through all this I've come to realize that life is less about the destination and more about the journey. Yes, yes - I know it's a corny phrase. However the truth of it is not that the journey is scenic, but more that the journey is where you become. I'm learning that where I end up in life is of little consequence. Where my mortal remains end up lying means nothing in the scheme of eternity. No - it's not the destination, nor the journey per se that is most important to God, it's becoming the person He calls me to be. Allowing His Spirit free reign over mine - regardless of circumstances - in order that I might become more like Him. It's been throughout the hard lessons of this year that I've come to see the challenge in a trial, not just to get through it to my destination, but to know that it is creating me. I'm beginning to see what both Paul and James meant when they spoke of "glorying in trials".
"we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope."
- Romans 5:3
"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience."
- James 1:2 
It's not the trials that are the joy, it's what the trials are doing. It is in the knowing; the understanding it is for our sanctification we can find peace in the hardship. This life is not about who we are now, or where we're going - it's about who we are becoming. And so in the light of this new understanding, hardship and heartache have become golden places for me to learn invaluable lessons; things that help me become more like my Father. Knowing that the testing of my faith produces His character in me. Put most succinctly by Tozer -
"Slowly you will discover God's love in your suffering. Your heart will begin to approve the whole thing. You will learn from yourself what all the schools in the world could not teach you—the healing action of faith without supporting pleasure. You will feel and understand the ministry of the night; its power to purify, to detach, to humble, to destroy the fear of death and, what is more important to you at the moment, the fear of life. And you will learn that sometimes pain can do what even joy cannot, such as exposing the vanity of earth's trifles and filling your heart with longing for the peace of heaven." - A.W. Tozer, That Incredible Christian, pp. 122-124
All of this has led me to a bizarre place. Though the lessons learnt and the character built has been an incredible blessing, it has left me without any real means of sharing it. As Jesus took His disciples aside up on the mountain to teach them specifically, I feel as though I've been placed inside a bubble - a snowglobe, if you will - to learn. I press my face against the glass and stare out, soaking in the world: all the pain, the experience, and the exhilaration of it all at once, and yet the glass is still there... between me and the application of all that is pent up inside... A silent witness to the lives of others, watching, waiting and wondering. Like a sponge retaining all the water it can hold without any means of releasing it, I feel as though this year has brought me to the point where I have so much treasured up inside my heart, but the time has not yet come to give it away. And even though this life inside the snowglobe is a lonely kind of place, it's beautiful at the same time. This closeness of God I feel in my spirit I would not trade for all the world outside the glass. For the joy that we share as we tarry there none other has ever known. 

Despite all the hard times of 2015, that same joy has blessed me in such intrinsic ways. When I think back to where I was this time last year, I can't help but marvel, and count the many blessings God has so graciously bestowed upon me. I never would've imagined that new friends would become so close; that relationships would bloom out of the ashes, or that I would see sights I only ever knew as photos. I witnessed miracles and healings, stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, put real faces to real people who were only names to me. I shared countless beautiful hours in the blessed familiarity of my family, soaked in the wonder of falling snow, drank good coffee, spent four glorious hours straight in prayer and ministry with siblings in Christ, sang my heart out, and had the satisfaction of working so hard I could barely stand. I breathed deep of ocean air, drank in the sight of vast landscapes, and loathed parting from those I dearly loved, yet was so grateful for a unity that made parting so hard. I took road trips on my own for the first time, listened to good music, cried at beautiful weddings, and laughed so hard that my sides ached. This life is a precious, rare, and beautiful thing I am so incredibly grateful for.


So whilst I feel as though I'm facing the year of 2016 with my life contained in a tiny little snowglobe, God is here. He has used all this year to shape me one cut closer to who I will become, and if I were to forever remain in this place of quiet wondering with my hands against the glass, it would be well worth it for the One Who is with me. You can have all this world, give me Jesus. 

No fear of death, and more importantly, no fear of life. I welcome the next leg of the journey. 2016, may God's will be fulfilled in you.


Every step along the way
I know You never leave my side
Whatever the season I can say
These are the best days of my life.

- Jason Gray


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Why hello! This blog is a scrapbook of my stumbling along in the footsteps of my Saviour-Friend, Jesus. This long obedience in the same direction of knowing and loving God is the most amazing, crazy adventure, and I'm so excited to share it with you! So whilst I put the kettle on for coffee, feel free to explore these pages. Thankyou for stopping to sit a while with me in His presence. It's where the journey begins.

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