Something in me comes alive when I write. It's like I'm more fully able to explore and express my soul. Lately I've been making use of lots of silence and meditation, allowing my soul to be still and rest. However journalling allows me to connect with Christ in a very unique way. This is my first journal entry in at least 6 months. It's about one of my favourite topics: brokenness.
Life is beautiful, so full of joy, and yet so full of darkness.
In humanity I see laughter, goodness and love, yet in those very same people I see selfishness, greed, hate and the capability to destroy. I know that I am good, that I am capable of love, building-up others, bestowing hope and joy, but I also know that I am all too capable of manipulating, hurting, ignoring and oppressing. In one instance I bring life, yet in another I bring death. I love purely, but also lust and thirst for self-gratification. I love freely, then place conditions.
I am good, yet I am also wretched.
Yet I fear not the darkness. Curse and resent it, yes. Mourn and long for freedom from it, of course. But fear it I don't when I stand in Christ. I fear not that it devalues me, for in Christ I am a son being transformed and changed. I know that my hope is not I, but Christ. I know that as Christ lives in me, I am being renewed. I know that though we often find ourselves in the darkness and hurt of the cross, that there is victory, life and resurrection. I feel it now, I experience it daily, yet at the same time it still seems so far off. There are days when I feel like a resurrected liberated man, and days when I feel like I am under the weight of all my sin, living in darkness.
But whether at the cross or at the empty tomb, it is not I, but Christ that is my hope.
I long for the day when I, and all of creation experience fully the resurrection life. Until then, I confess daily my sinfulness. I face my brokenness, not dismissing it, but bringing it before Christ, knowing that we are beloved children who have all of His love, struggling each day to give ourselves fully in return.
I am a broken, sinful man. Far from being a judgement of condemnation, it helps me more fully understand who I am and why.
