“there is no love of life without despair of life” Albert Camus
Richard A. Bridgan
Broken…completely;
Restored…ever so sweetly.
Judi Baldwin
Washed by the blood, we are now polished by adversity. Except by shipwreck, we are brought to shore. Skip TW 8/5/11
(I love this quote and saved it from 2011. I can’t remember if Skip said it or if it was written by one of the bloggers. I didn’t write down the name of the TW and couldn’t find it by using the date. Maybe someone else can.)
Thanks Skip. I love that quote. It’s a powerful encouragement and reminder of how God works through ALL, even unimaginable circumstances to draw us closer to Him.
In Ezekiel 36:26 YHVH promises to break our ice-cold rock-hard dead-as-a-doornail hearts and give us real ones. This is only a terrifying proposition before the fact, y’all: life feels good once you get used to it!
And, while we are at it, all of us know we could sure “use a break” because everybody wants justice.
Breaks are not always bad things. An unbroken colt is about as useful as an unweaned child. A broken heart can return us, like David, to a place where we can “behave and quiet” ourselves. Maturity is not a bad side effect of a good breaking, either.
Revelation 18:23 tells us that all of us (“the nations”) were deceived by means of sorcery. Sanity is only possible when that spell is broken. I think to the extent that our identity is bound up in that spell, it can feel like the breaking of that spell is the breaking of our ‘self’. Insanity is like that, after all, because the definition of insanity is false identity.
On the seas of life, we are told that there is “no peace for the wicked”. “Peace, be still” is a welcome break in that weather!
Broken strongholds of evil, also, can only be accomplished through an essential breaking of the hurt-hardened heart (which is that stronghold) we can end up with because we kept falling for things that appeared to be love but weren’t.
We can only break even, too, by means of the grace that returns us to a true starting point (“gain our own soul”) which we seem to only be able to get to after we gain the courage to break the cover of the bushes we hid in – ostensibly to “gain the whole world”; but, I think, in actuality, to try to keep life from finding us.
Our grip on death – that essential “agreement with hell” – must be broken. Fear is the fingernail hold we use to avoid the free fall of faith so essential for free choice to operate. But without that free fall, how else are the angels going to bear us up in their hands or YHVH to carry us on eagle’s wings?
I think when we get tired enough of the thistles of putting the cares of earth first; the stony paths the way of the world offers; the rock-hard hearts of ourselves and others; and the mold of the fleshly reactions to life, it could be time to “break up the fallow ground” instead (the ground of the truth we did all the other stuff to avoid, of course); the truth that it is not all about us. That truth is the only place a real heart of flesh can live, however; for our lives are not our own. We are “bought with a price”. After coming to the (broken) end of all other ends, it may be time to figure out what that means.
Robert lafoy
And a broken heart is the only heart able to heal another. And David said, ……..
“there is no love of life without despair of life” Albert Camus
Broken…completely;
Restored…ever so sweetly.
Washed by the blood, we are now polished by adversity. Except by shipwreck, we are brought to shore. Skip TW 8/5/11
(I love this quote and saved it from 2011. I can’t remember if Skip said it or if it was written by one of the bloggers. I didn’t write down the name of the TW and couldn’t find it by using the date. Maybe someone else can.)
It is, in fact, from 5 August 2011. I wrote it in the TW for that day. You can find it by Google search
Skip moen taking-care-of-business-3
Thanks Skip. I love that quote. It’s a powerful encouragement and reminder of how God works through ALL, even unimaginable circumstances to draw us closer to Him.
That IS quite good!
In Ezekiel 36:26 YHVH promises to break our ice-cold rock-hard dead-as-a-doornail hearts and give us real ones. This is only a terrifying proposition before the fact, y’all: life feels good once you get used to it!
And, while we are at it, all of us know we could sure “use a break” because everybody wants justice.
Breaks are not always bad things. An unbroken colt is about as useful as an unweaned child. A broken heart can return us, like David, to a place where we can “behave and quiet” ourselves. Maturity is not a bad side effect of a good breaking, either.
Revelation 18:23 tells us that all of us (“the nations”) were deceived by means of sorcery. Sanity is only possible when that spell is broken. I think to the extent that our identity is bound up in that spell, it can feel like the breaking of that spell is the breaking of our ‘self’. Insanity is like that, after all, because the definition of insanity is false identity.
On the seas of life, we are told that there is “no peace for the wicked”. “Peace, be still” is a welcome break in that weather!
Broken strongholds of evil, also, can only be accomplished through an essential breaking of the hurt-hardened heart (which is that stronghold) we can end up with because we kept falling for things that appeared to be love but weren’t.
We can only break even, too, by means of the grace that returns us to a true starting point (“gain our own soul”) which we seem to only be able to get to after we gain the courage to break the cover of the bushes we hid in – ostensibly to “gain the whole world”; but, I think, in actuality, to try to keep life from finding us.
Our grip on death – that essential “agreement with hell” – must be broken. Fear is the fingernail hold we use to avoid the free fall of faith so essential for free choice to operate. But without that free fall, how else are the angels going to bear us up in their hands or YHVH to carry us on eagle’s wings?
I think when we get tired enough of the thistles of putting the cares of earth first; the stony paths the way of the world offers; the rock-hard hearts of ourselves and others; and the mold of the fleshly reactions to life, it could be time to “break up the fallow ground” instead (the ground of the truth we did all the other stuff to avoid, of course); the truth that it is not all about us. That truth is the only place a real heart of flesh can live, however; for our lives are not our own. We are “bought with a price”. After coming to the (broken) end of all other ends, it may be time to figure out what that means.
And a broken heart is the only heart able to heal another. And David said, ……..