“Growth only happens through the seed broken open.”- Ann Voskamp
Ann Voskamp concludes Chapter 12 of The Broken Way by noting what happens when you commit to loving someone. When you make that commitment, you commit to losing a part of yourself. In other words, Ann states, you commit to dying.
As a result, Ms. Voskamp states, vulnerable communion can feel terrifying. For dying to self is a daily process. As Ann describes, we must come to terms with this tension:
” . . . accept the tension of feeling yourself led to the edge of yourself. In the raw experience of ‘I cannot do this,’ you experience how He remakes you into someone who can. And our broken hearts are called to that impossible, because that is who He, He who is in us, makes us the impossables. . . . Because with our God, nothing is impossible and our God is able, and with our God in us, all our broken efforts become possable . . .”
J. J. Packer defines cross-bearing as a “lesson set before us every moment of every day.” Cross-bearing enrolls us in the school of sainthood. Furthermore, we metamorphose as we die to self.
Therefore, Ann underscores, only cross-bearing makes you passionately human. Although life gets harder before it gets easier, life gets better if you don’t give in.
In conclusion, Ann offers these encouraging words:
“Grace can strike when you are in great pain and light you with the greatest hope.”
Today’s question: During your desert, transition time, what spiritual growth has occurred through the seed broken open? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Love like there’s no tomorrow”
