Written for a friend with a sore heart. Hoping this will help, if even just a little.

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I’ve been thinking about you here lately. Thinking about how it doesn’t bug you to be alone, and  how much you like to go exploring, walking those winding sand-dune trails all the way to the sea. I think about how you don’t give a rip what the neighbors think as you sit on your roof in the middle of your busy street, for hours, and stare at a rainbow until the last smidgen of color fades. 

I’ve been thinking about the story you told me of how you found this one “wishing” tree out on the seacoast and this chair that hangs from it by one bolt and how you climbed up there and out on that limb and just sat there taking in all the view. The view of waves crashing and unfathomable depth stretching out as far as your eye could see. I think about the faith it took you just to sit out on that chair, feet dangling and you were so adventurous, so unafraid. And you carried that faith with you to the shore, where you’ve learned to swim out where it’s deep and ride the swells in. Wild abandonment. Some call it bliss.

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And while I was with you, I peeked in to look behind your eyes and saw a little glimpse of your heart. I couldn’t help but notice that it’s a bit sore. Sore from just living. Just loving and giving and hoping and wishing and finding that sometimes things don’t turn out the way we dreamed. Sore from taking risks, good risks, but risks all the same…and the outcome is more than disappointing. Sore from trying to figure it all out. Trying to work it all out. And now perhaps you’re just plumb give out..from all the trying. It can make a heart sore. 

Where do you go from here? I want you to hear me–you’re doing the right thing. I see the way you go to the only One who has it all together. The only One who can hold us all together. This Jesus, Healer of hearts worn sore.  Keep talking to Him. Keep going to Him. If even just to sit in the quiet and gaze at Him. That smarting, throbbing soreness is the reminder that we’re broken, and we need Him. Desperately need Him.

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You know, He also went out on a limb once and hung on a tree, taking in all the view. He looked out over the vast expanse of humanity and He felt the depth of all our ache. He took it all upon Himself…right there on that cross. It’s by His wounds that we’re healed. Jesus is the Savior who suffered, so He knows, like deep-down knows our pain. He has all this power to mend what’s broken inside of us and we’re all a bit battered and broken. Every last one of us. 

So now you and I, with wild faith, can abandon our sore hearts to Him. His grace breaks over us like waves.

Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls;
         All Your waves and billows have gone over me.
 The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,
         And in the night His song shall be with me—
         A prayer to the God of my life.
(Psalm 42:7-8)