I was watching some wretched documentary when one of the character's wailed, "I've lost my children. A part of me is gone and I'll never get it back!"
While I can't personally identify, I can empathize. The death of your child is an unspeakable, painful ripping that never goes away in this life. What I thought immediately when I heard the woman's outcry was, "I think the Lord feels that way frequently; about the church and about precious people who choose hell over knowing Him."
The Lord is so creative, He made each one of us unique from anyone else in history before or ever after. (It doesn't matter if someone has told you that you're just like your mother, or father, or uncle).
Each one of us has the opportunity to know Him in a way no one else can or ever will. Our specialness creates that unique relationship. Yahweh also creates patterns, and thus the similarities that draw us to one another. Some of us are are able to empathize in a crisis but have no idea how to move out of it; others of us don't appear sympathetic but are cool, collected and kick into action to get us out of danger. Some of us are color blind; others of us can taste and smell flavors very few others even notice.
It takes all of us to make the quilt that is His body, the Church. Imagine a quilt that was all one grey color with no fancy stitching. Wait, ....that's not a quilt! It's not even an elephant in the fog (photo above--kidding).
You may have read, "But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” (1 Cornithians 12:20-21). What I see frequently is the foot aspiring to be a hand, or something along those lines.
The enemy of your existence spends a LOT of time trying to convince you that you are not fearfully and wonderfully made; that you need to be something or someone else than who He made you. The meaning of abuse is simply something that is used outside it's purpose. When we become convinced we are not enough as He made us, and we strive to be something else, we end up self-abusing and abusing others.
On the other hand, when we see people living to their potential in Christ, we see hints of Heaven. Oh, that I can be a hint of Heaven wherever I am and whatever I do, rather than a stench from, well, hell.
While I can't personally identify, I can empathize. The death of your child is an unspeakable, painful ripping that never goes away in this life. What I thought immediately when I heard the woman's outcry was, "I think the Lord feels that way frequently; about the church and about precious people who choose hell over knowing Him."
The Lord is so creative, He made each one of us unique from anyone else in history before or ever after. (It doesn't matter if someone has told you that you're just like your mother, or father, or uncle).
Each one of us has the opportunity to know Him in a way no one else can or ever will. Our specialness creates that unique relationship. Yahweh also creates patterns, and thus the similarities that draw us to one another. Some of us are are able to empathize in a crisis but have no idea how to move out of it; others of us don't appear sympathetic but are cool, collected and kick into action to get us out of danger. Some of us are color blind; others of us can taste and smell flavors very few others even notice.
It takes all of us to make the quilt that is His body, the Church. Imagine a quilt that was all one grey color with no fancy stitching. Wait, ....that's not a quilt! It's not even an elephant in the fog (photo above--kidding).
You may have read, "But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” (1 Cornithians 12:20-21). What I see frequently is the foot aspiring to be a hand, or something along those lines.
The enemy of your existence spends a LOT of time trying to convince you that you are not fearfully and wonderfully made; that you need to be something or someone else than who He made you. The meaning of abuse is simply something that is used outside it's purpose. When we become convinced we are not enough as He made us, and we strive to be something else, we end up self-abusing and abusing others.
On the other hand, when we see people living to their potential in Christ, we see hints of Heaven. Oh, that I can be a hint of Heaven wherever I am and whatever I do, rather than a stench from, well, hell.
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