“Turns out you can only find the way through when you look both back and forward — and believe that no matter what direction you’re looking, nobody gets to bypass the hard roads, that this handful of five tried-and-true words are you most honest compass: ‘ And it came to pass.’ “- Ann Voskamp
“Fully to enjoy God is infinitely better than . . . fathers and mothers, husbands, wives or children . . . or . . . earthly friends. These are but shadows; but God is the substance. . . . These are but drops, but God is the ocean.”- Jonathan Edwards
In Chapter 5 (“There’s No Place Like Home”) of WayMaker, Ann Voskamp talks about what happens when you lose connection to loved ones, dreams, your Maker. Lose connection, Ann cautions, and you find trauma. We can’t bear losing people we need. Because, the author observes, as Wayfarers we need connection to the North Star.
Therefore, in order to survive, we all need a connected heart — woven to our Beloved, Jesus. And every broken heart wants to be rocked calm – desires shalom. Above all, Ann explains:
“Shalom means more than complete peace — it’s peaceful completeness. Wholeness. And shalom isn’t a completeness that we arrive at like a destination; shalom is a completeness that we experience along the way, like an orientation.”
However, Ann reminds us, knowing the way of love and knowing the way of suffering go hand in hand. Thus, there’s only one way to avoid heartbreak — grow so hard that you become unbreakable.
Writing in The Four Loves (1960), C. S. Lewis issued this warning when your heart avoids all entanglements:
“Lock [your heart] up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. . . . The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
Hence, Ann exhorts, rather than desperately wish for a way out of heartbreak for someone, give the gift of withness.
Today’s question: When do you yearn to bypass the hard roads? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Through every heartbreak to home”
