BROKEN PEOPLE CAN HAVE POINTY EDGES

It has been so long since I posted a blog....I literally couldn't remember how to access our family blog.  :)  So much has transpired since our last post and my heart is currently so full of stirrings and thoughts.  
This has been an interesting year.....one full of heartache, joy, peace, friendship, newness, lots of brokenness, and ultimately so much of Christ.  It would be impossible to write every detail, but I am always open for a cup of coffee and conversation if you want more than these rusty red words reveal.  I am just going to touch on something that has kept the gears in my mind turning the last few weeks.
This year our family was forced to grab angry tear filled hands and pull one another out of some rather thick mourning.  We were eagerly preparing to welcome another little brother into our family, when the reality of what was collided with our longing for what could have been.....and in our hearts what should have been.  The life that was given was also taken and we had to learn how to wrestle with the Sovereign.  Wrestling with the Sovereign would then become the theme of our year...as we have had to dig deep and conclude that we did not understand sovereignty.  
 The loss of Nehemiah, which means "God is my comfort", became what we now recognize as part of a sovereign plan.  This conclusion has come with many angry words and broken pieces.  I did not want to accept that the Lord would use it for our good, I would not consider that the Lord's ways are higher and that somehow this could ever be part of His plan.  The only conclusion I had was that He left, He accidentally allowed something to occur in my world.....and for a few months after-the walls continued to crash on top of whatever was left of my hope, my faith, and my grace.  
We left our church hurt and angry, I unfriended those who I wanted to feel hurt back, I shut the door on relationships that had been chiseled with time.  I was hurting, so I erased a source of that pain from my life.  Grace was not given and grace was not offered.  I was done with anyone I felt joined the Lord in this cruel twist to my undoing.  
Honestly, it felt good.  I felt empowered by just being able to walk away.  
So, now if you can come with me to the place I am now.....after a year of healing, refining, and purging....after a year of "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted".  Imagine the brokenness that comes when abandonment is realized to be the fulfillment of a promise...to be comforted by "The Comforter".  If you can envision the repentance of a broken women, realizing that we are all broken and sometimes our sharp edges hurt one another, but that should not change our fellowship and love as the body of Christ.  Really sovereignty and grace walk hand in hand.  You can't have one without the other.  Wrestling with the Sovereign is discovering His hands are full of grace.  His movement in my life is woven with mercy and I am not asked to understand, I am commanded to trust.  
There are churches full of people who have been hurt by churches, some act as a safe place for those still wounded and bleeding.  It is almost trendy to have issues with "the church" in our culture.  Could I just encourage all of us to remember that Jesus died for "The Church".  It is one body full of many members, and though we may worship in a variety of styles, buildings, and denominations-we all wear the same jersey.  This is one team, with one captain.  Being hurt is simply evidence that we are all broken and broken people often have sharp and pointy edges.  The Lord is sanding and molding; He is refining all of us.  What if the bleeding we often cause one another, didn't push us away or cause anger?  What if it thrust us into an ocean of grace?  Grace towards those who pierce us with their sharp edges, and grace for ourselves who often do not receive the marks from a place of trusting the Sovereign.  I wonder if we could learn to drown in this grace and willingly die, so that He would be evidenced in our unconditional love for one another.  I wonder if we often blame the heart of man, for the mind of God.  Sometimes He does, allows, and sets things into motion because His thoughts are for our eternal prosperity and not our present comfort. 
I am not good at this.....but I am learning to desire it!  I want to love well, and I long to be an overflow of the grace I am constantly showered with.  I am living from a place of gratitude this October.  Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of our son Nehemiah, being used to reveal to us "God is my comfort".  It has been a beautifully broken year.  I wouldn't trade it, though I might walk through it a bit differently, with deeper trust and abundant grace.