You Deserve Better

It seems that you are on to the possibility that you deserve better, that you deserve to be put back together instead of torn apart. Wrapped in things that are true instead of lies. Shown pictures of hope instead of failure. - TWLOHA

If you have never heard of the organization To Write Love on Her Arms, you need to check them out. Their mission is to speak the truth of wholeness into the pain and brokenness of the secret world of self injury.Today they published a letter in response to the postcard that was in this Sunday's Postsecret.

I loved the above quote from their comments. Each person we meet whether they are struggling with self injury, or self righteousness is a broken vessel in need of being put back together. The historian Philo is often mis-credited with the quote,
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Though the source to the wisdom is quite questionable, it's truth is not. The people we encounter, those we love, and those we struggle to love; those who love us and those who struggle to love us; those we attempt to ignore and those who attempt to ignore us; those we see as wise and those we see as fools, all of here on this great rock share the reality of pain.

"When you recognize that pain and response to pain is a universal thing, it helps explain so many things about others, just as it explains so much about yourself. It teaches you forbearance. It teaches you a moderation in your responses to other people's behavior. It teaches you a sort of understanding. It essentially tells you what everybody needs. You know what everybody needs? You want to put it in a single word? Everybody needs to be understood. And out of that comes every form of love. If someone truly feels that you understand them, an awful lot of neurotic behavior just disappears. Disappears on your part, disappears on their part. So if you're talking about what motivates this world to continue existing as a community, you've got to talk about love." - Sherwin Nuland

The great theologian Karl Barth was once asked what the greatest theological truth he had learned was and he replied, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." That truth is enhanced by the reality that every person I have ever loved, hated, respected, ignored, bandaged, or wounded is anchored by that same God love! It is my goal to live my life this way; to be brought into wholeness by God's healing power to such a point where I love enough to practice what I preach here, to make EVERY encounter of life a season of healing and wholeness, rather than adding to the pain and hurt!

God help me to Love like That!!!!