Up the Sunbeam

-- If you'd like, you're welcome to read Part 1 and Part 2 first.  =) Welcome (or welcome back) to my ongoing conversation on the popular Christian concept of brokenness . I am so glad you're here and look forward to your reflections and input!  I hope you will look up the scriptures I have linked to throughout this post so you can further your own exploration of what I have to share here! I have continued to study and pray and contemplate many things I have heard and read. It is a challenge to pin down a clear and particular definition and application of brokenness .  It is a word much-used by modern Christians and theologians, many with renowned names you would readily recognize with respect, but it isn't a word I've been able to find frequently in Scripture, and certainly not with all the meanings it wears now! This word bothers me . . . at least some uses of it bother me. Am I being rebellious? Stubborn? Obtuse? Unspiritual? Foolish? I hope not. ...

- Time. Impossible to pin down . . . impossible to hold back . . . impossible to hurry . . . impossible to keep . . . impossible to ever have enough. I can't decide whether to be happy to see 2009 flow away or to savor the last few drops of it--so I choose both. That seems to be the way when I'm grappling with mixed emotions. It is seldom a one-or-the-other conclusion. Today I skimmed through the entries of this year's prayer journal where I have poured out my heart to the God who can handle whatever I bring Him. While it is by no means complete, I read with amazement some of my most intense in-the-mome nt processing of life through 2009, including the ugly, scary monsters in my closet, the ravenous grizzly bears under my bed, and the just plain old ugly things in my heart I had to show my Father. Even more than these, I got to read the answered prayers, the good and perfect gifts, the unexpected Godlight He shone into my ...