“Sometimes what we think may break us is but a brake to save us.”- Ann Voskamp
In Chapter 17 (“How to Find Heroes in a Suffering World”) of The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp observes that wounds that never heal = wounds mourned alone. Furthermore, you tell yourself you’re ready for God to heal your wound or use it as He wills. Yet, quiet questions remain. You wonder what it all means or how it may feel.
However, when you slow down you’re able to feel your wounded parts, the underground parts of you. Those underground parts do whatever is necessary to keep reaching for the light.
Therefore, allow compassion to find a home in your heart- the safest place for the brokenhearted. To keep a stiff-necked sheep safe, Ann explains, a shepherd puts a “brake” on the sheep’s leg. The brake is a weight that temporarily stops a stiff-necked sheep from running away.
As a result, once that sheep gets close to the shepherd, learns its own name, and recognizes the shepherd’s voice, the sheep trusts the ways of the shepherd. Ann applies that concept to us:
“Sometimes what we feel weighing us down is the way He draws us closer . . . to keep us close enough to know more of who we are: beloved. What feels like too much can give you more of God. And you can always have as much of God as you want. . . . Maybe it’s the compassion of God that uses the unexpected to brake me so the unholy doesn’t break me.”
Jesus’ compassion always holds us in the arms of grace.
Today’s question: During your desert, transitional time, what brake has the Good Shepherd placed on you? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Daily giving your presence to one”
