Monday, December 5, 2011

A Spacious Place

On Sundays a few friends come together before worship to study the stories within the Bible. After our session on David, I write:

"Thinking about ... the idea that God is closest to us in times
of promiscuity and brokenness... the most intense moment of parenting is not my pride in the honor student marching steadily toward graduation, but in a wordless embrace given the young woman experiencing firsthand a crushing failure..." —Rw

As I reread the words, there is potential for confusion. I am not remembering my children, but looking back on my own life from a parental perspective, intimately experiencing the heartbreaking realization that God is Father... Mother... Parent to me.

"He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
[the LORD] drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me."
2 Samuel 22

A youngest boy, the runt of the family, tends the sheep. A boy, embraced by God, becomes a king. The Story is resplendent with unlikely heroes like David.

Wallowing in brokenness, wantonly seeking to displease, my inner rebel raged at God for decades. The rebel within me was and is given the freedom to journey and discover and question.

In exploring my story and The Story, I discover Jehovah-rapha, The Lord Who Heals. In the white-hot pain inflicted by my own rebelliousness and crushing failures, God forged an iron trellis within an unlikely heroine, a place where compassion now grows.

God's love is a spacious place. God rescues and delights.

Jehovah-rapha delights in me.

Jehovah-rapha delights in you.

Rw


The Story is all about ... God’s great love affair with humanity.
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