Wholeness

Lord, I am fragmented.
Please make me whole.
Lord, there are parts of me that I don’t like and there are parts that I do.
Yet I am the sum of them.
Please make me whole.
Lord, I have gifts of creativity, emotion and logic;
Integrate my being, and make me whole, dear Lord.
Lord, I am spirit, soul and body and some of it is broken.

Dear, dear Lord: I cry to you to make me whole.
Mend me and integrate me afresh.
Things have got corrupted: re-program me, O Lord,
That I might be the human being you always wanted me to be.

Dear Lord, I am spirit, soul and body and I am not in balance.
Tune me so that I might harmonize with your Holy Spirit,
that he might lead me in all truth.
Help me hear the music of heaven, the songs of the angels;
The whisper of your command,
And grant me strength in soul and body to obey.

And dear Lord, I am one, just one, of your church on earth.
You called it your Body: you called it your Temple, with us as living stones.
Grant that I might be truly a part, truly a living stone
with a function, with a purpose,
giving and receiving
loving and caring
being loved and cared for
doing your will.

My Lord, I offer you all of me.
Make me beautiful,
make me whole, O Lord, I pray.

Michale Fulljames and Michael Harper, Prayers for Healing

Pretending There Is No Pain

The act of pain-suppression is never a good remedy for healing... it only makes our pain more concentrated; more acute.

When you are wounded, hurt, or in pain, the way to really deal with it is to name it.

Naming our pain is like turning on the light when we hear noises in the house.  It becomes striped of its capacity to hold us in fear.  When we name our pain we define it; creating boundaries in which it can no longer roam anywhere it pleases.

Our naming constructs a container that can hold corrosive contents.

While pain-suppression tries to convince that there is no pain (so keep going on your merry way), naming our pain gives us the space to breathe again, to catch our breath, pause, turn, stare it in the eyes and tell it that we will not be held hostage any longer.

Call pain out of the shadows, bring it front-and-center and no longer let it hold you in fear.

At Work

In John chapter 5 Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath. Jesus should have known better.

You don’t heal on the Sabbath.

Thankfully, the Pharisees were there to remind Jesus of his “faux pas”.

Upon questioning his Sabbath breaking, Jesus said things like: “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working”, “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does”, and “…I seek not to please myself but the one who sent me.”

In Jesus’ reply I am comforted in knowing that the Father is always at his work. No vacation keeps Him lounging, no difficult situation keeps Him guessing, and no “rules” keep him confined. Our Father is always at work.

While I am comforted and assured of a God who is always active on behalf of His creation, I also desire to be able to reply with confidence the same way Jesus did: “I do only what I see the Father doing…”

Like an apprentice in relationship to the artisan, being about the Master’s work isn’t merely vocational; it is a calling. This calling isn’t reserved for clergy or those who work in a church, but each one of us.

Hurt, The Church, Being Restored

We as human beings misuse our power on a regular basis in our quest to acquire what we want in life. I hear stories over and again from people who have been hurt (and abused) by someone who they trusted. Whether the misuse of power was intentional or unintentional, the result those who have gotten in the way is the same: brokeness.

When you have been wounded you become less likely to trust, to open yourself to another, to be hopeful, to love.

Sadly this hurt comes from those who are supposed to care for one another; from parents, siblings, or another trusted relative. When hurt comes from within the family it is, perhaps, even more painful. In the same way I hear people's stories who have been wounded by the church (or a follower of Jesus) in such a way that it begins to malform their view of a loving God.

In his book Finding My Way Home, Henri Nouwen writes: "The number of people who 'have been wounded by religion' overwhelms me. An unfriendly or judgmental word by a minister or priest, a critical remark in church about a certain lifestyle, a refusal to welcome people at the table, an absence during an illness or death, and countless other hurts often remain longer in people's memories than other more world-like rejections. Thousands of separated and divorced men and women, numerous gay and lesbian people, and all of the homeless people who felt unwelcome in the houses of worship of their brothers and sisters in the human family have turned away from God because they experienced the use of power when they expected an expression of love."

While the Church is not perfect, it is my hope that the sacred community of God becomes known more and more as a place of healing and wholeness; a place where broken things go to be fixed, tired things restored. In order for this to happen, responsibility falls on each one of us to live in such a way that we sow peace and hope wherever we go. We as followers of Jesus need to be marked by his very atributes: humilty and servanthood. This also means that our reliance cannot be on ourselves but rather on the grace and work of the Spirit breathing new life and possibility into all of us.

peace.