Thursday, April 29, 2010

stretching. depth. love.



Last night was my last growth group of the year. What a year it has been! As a good leader, one of the things you are supposed to do is help your group gain closure and leave them with positive memories of growth groups through reflection. The part that is not mentioned is that to do so, you must reflect as well and that is a dangerous thing. I had expected that because I was serving in a role that seemed to fit my personality so well that this year would be easy. I assumed that caring for others would drive out my broken places and fill them with warm feelings of how good God is.
Here I sit. Filled with the wonder of how good God is but because he has spent the last year pointing out the depth of my broken places. He has pushed my face in the ocean that is my natural tendency towards despair and held me under until I could truly appreciate the beauty of air. It has been a long time since the depth of my depravity has brought me as much deep sadness as it has this last year. I have learned the most beautiful secret though. God loves me. Not "God loves me in spite of my depravity" or "God loves that I am depraved." But simply. God loves me. It makes no difference to his love how broken I am or how easily I seem to forget his love. He waits for me, as close as ever, and when I am ready, I find myself overwhelmed by the most steadfast and wild peace.
Last night my girls and I sat around and answered a bunch of reflection questions that I had put in a jar and passed around. The last question was "If you could pick three words to describe this year, what would they be?" My three words are stretching, depth, and love. What are yours?