Anchor

My heart feels so full of love and pain and compassion at times I feel like it's going to burst.

This is a blessing. I know this is from my Savior. He has given me a heart that hurts deeply for the unloved, for the broken, for the vulnerable. He has given me a burning passion for justice, for all His people and all His creatures to be loved and cared for the way He desires.

God has given me a deep love for people and a bright, hopeful vision of the way things should be and the way He will make all things again. This vision fills me with joy and excitement and I just cant help but tell people about it, and do everything in my power to further this vision.

This is all a gift. I know it is. By His grace, my Savior has opened my eyes to His beauty and salvation and has given me a heart that hurts like His and is learning to love like His more every day.

But as with all of us, there are days where the enemy corrupts this gift. Days when I think about the injustice that happens to the innocent, the leaders who take advantage of their people, the strong who hurt the weak, and I am so overcome with anger that I almost can't process my thoughts, can't move. Days where I can't stop my mind from imagining the loneliness and hurt of a child who does not have parents to love and care for him the way God intended. And I'm paralyzed. Days where my mind goes numb from thinking about the hopelessness of trying to break the cycles that prevent girls from knowing their full value as women of God.

A wise teacher at a retreat recently reminded me how it is the very gifts God has given us that our very real enemy sneakily corrupts. We forget how real he is sometimes, but there are days like today where I can almost feel a darkness in my heart.

The love and compassion for people becomes a burden. My heart hurts so much that it's all I can think about...my head pounds as I imagine the pain and suffering of so many and I cant stop thinking about it and my mind spins and spins until I'm crying at my desk at work and there is no hope.

But when the tears start to come - this is when the Spirit our Savior gives us whispers to me, reminding me that He has cried more than this. And that it's ok to cry - that this crying and hurting and crying out is a gift. He asks us to do this - he asks us to feel what He feels and love as He loves.

And He reminds me that in Him our minds can be transformed - can be brought into deeper unity with His vision, taught to pray more powerful prayers, quieted to listen to more of His hopeful story, and directed so that we know how to respond to the brokenness He shows us. We no longer have to cry angry tears and imagine endless pain for the innocent. No, instead we can know that even at this moment it is God Himself who fights for them. He hears our cries for mercy and responds.

My Savior reminds me that through the transforming of our minds the hope of His salvation settles deep within our hearts, protecting our thoughts from the spinning lies of the evil one. He reminds me that He desires our hearts AND our minds to be anchored by the hope of our souls (Heb. 6:19)

So, to my fellow compassionate over-thinkers and over-analytical activists, this is my continual prayer for you and for myself: I pray we would not be afraid to love deeply and to weep loudly. I pray we would not be afraid to storm the most heart-breaking areas with fire in our eyes - not broken by what we see but spurred on by faith in the power of our God to love even more wildly....even as we weep. I pray our minds would be so transformed that we see beyond what is plain in this world to the shadows of darkness that lurk just past our vision, and the fire of the Cross that fights them.

I pray the hope that anchors our souls and brings us "behind the curtain" would quiet our minds and order our thoughts, bringing us to His feet and freeing us to think clearly and move boldly - even as we see the hurting world around us. Because our God goes before us, making all things new and shadows disappear. (Is. 45:2-3)

 

 

"...we...take hold of the hope set before us...We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf." (Hebrews 6:18-20)

photo credit: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/345/c/6/aslan_and_lucy_by_genevi-d5np7gx.jpg

“Trust Him to lead you...find....perfect peace and freedom in the presence of the Lord, who is the Lover of your soul.”
-John of the Cross (via Lynne Hybels)