“It was when you shared your story with me that I found the courage to face mine.”
She spoke it soft, the unconventional twenty-something I’d befriended months earlier. For a few moments longer, we chatted about the fresh hope God was stirring in her heart as she confronted some tough issues. And we ended the conversation with a promise to reconnect soon.
As I hit the red button on my cell, I lingered, my back resting comfortable on the wingback chair, my journal notes still scattered across my lap. My heart wanted to sit with this a tad longer, pondering how overwhelmingly good it is of God to weave this refreshing hope from such ugly brokenness. Brokenness that just a few years back I would have been too intimidated to share.
It’s ironic: how this pouring out, this sharing of story, is one of the ways God often brings healing to our own hurting hearts.
You simply don’t spend much time with a woman without seeing the need, her malnourished desire for a real and practical hope that comes from someone who gets it.
I’ve felt it many times over the years. I imagine you have too.
Oh we hear a lot of talk about this sort of authenticity, this connection designed to lead us into deep relationship, and we subscribe to its power—in theory. But I’ll go ahead and say it for all of us, admit those days I don’t want to bring my heart new. Days I’d rather stay tucked in the safe no-risk zone, hiding my real and raw, believing those I long to encourage would somehow be discouraged if they knew how hard things really were. . .
When it feels as if I have gone under water for the last time I remember in my weakness is His greatest strength!
Amen.
This is so beautifully written and SO true!! As much as hard times are…hard…it’s encouraging knowing that there’s a REASON you’re going through them. So often I am surrounded by people struggling with what I’ve struggled with and I know that God brought me through my experiences in order to speak truth into their lives and help them through.