Some broken red stumbles

    Why did I ever think I had it all figured out? Like I had some answers that would pour out like miracle salve on anyone who read my words? 

    I'm finding that it's not gonna happen. This blog might help someone, but it will more than likely be me - a place to bleed a bit on some pages and wipe away the splatters so it looks like perfect red lettering, marching politely across the screen - so I can smile incredulous at the beauty that doesn't look like me.

    I'm scared, I think. Scared that if I left my raw wounded letters stuttering through sentences... that it would turn you away. Because since when did raw bleeding stumbles heal the hearts of the wounded? 

    But wait a second. They did. 

    How could I forget that my heart was healed, my life made new, by Jesus' blood dripping red? What kind of irony is this? That the raw hurting of one would pour healing on another? 

    If someone figures this all out, just let me know. 

    In the meantime, I'm back to my own bleeding. I've got struggles, you know - lots of them. I have daily inward battles concerning my eating, for example. I'm not anorexic or overweight, but the inside of me is wearing away from the corrosive idol of food set up in my heart. 

    I just love it too much, plain and simple. I realize that I was crafted to be a worshiper - God made me to have a burning desire for Him and His kingdom - but somehow I keep pushing Him aside and putting pizza or ice cream in His place.

    So right now I'm begging God. Begging Him to knock over the idols in my life and set up camp Himself. 

    Because I know I'm a worshiper. 

    A passionate, emotional being that runs on a fuel of driving desire. 

    And if I'm not wildly desiring God? 

    I can't run on empty. So if He is not my driving force, something else will be. And this old insatiable desire for food - it doesn't fill me up, leaves me stranded, guilty, hungry, again and again. 

    So I'm begging, begging God. These idols are awfully heavy, and could you please knock them down? Cause I can't....

    And fill me up, Jesus, with your agenda. Give me a desire and a tangible goal - something to strive towards - to drive me to joy. Give me orphans to love, things to make, cards to write... anything, Lord. To keep me worshiping, worshiping You and not food.

    Because I know I'm a worshiper. A worshiper begging God. 

    And the words run red, struggling raw, and I realize it's not the broken itself that heals others. The spilling hurt is only the vessel through which God's resurrecting power flows. 

    Just like at the cross. 

    So I don't have it figured out, and if you want pretty words all in line, don't come here. I'm fixing to keep pouring raw and open, because I believe in a story about a God who used the red flowing pain of a man to heal the broken-hearted. (Luke 4:18, Isaiah 53:5)