“It all comes down to this: Your wholeness is more about the health of your attachments than the hellishness of your adventures. Any reprieve or comfort from pain . . . is only for a fleeting moment till we crave a hit of more. The reorienting truth is this: Relationship is the only rewarding reality that lasts for all eternity.”- Ann Voskamp (emphasis Ann’s)
In Chapter 14 (“The WayMaker”) of WayMaker, Ann Voskamp observes that our slow move toward self-focus masquerades as healthy normalcy. And our precious incurvatus in se begins as we turn inward to comfort an ache. Instead of cruciformly reaching out to find healing as we commune with God. Eventually this focus on self squeezes the lifeblood right out of our souls.
Consequently, Ann views suffering as that friend that drives you where you don’t want to go. As a result, Ann dares to believe that life’s detours and deconstructions mean God wants you to run right into His arms. So He can reconstruct your heart.
However, the author counsels, when your road’s curved inward, forward fails to get you where you want to go. Rather, moving forward sends you wayward. Thus, due to the relational and directional nature of life, the rallying cry of a soul on the way = Toward! Toward God, hope, grace, love, cruciform, home!
In conclusion, Ann counsels, estrangement causes our main stress, not suffering:
“The estrangement that began in Eden with a broken trust and broken attachment to God is what keeps breaking us. Humanity’s greatest problem is not the problem of suffering but the problem of sin because, as Lutheran theologian Eberhard Jungel startlingly noted, it is sin that leave us ‘without relations,’ that leaves us estranged, that leaves us alone. . . . Ultimately sin is our way of keeping God away. More than the stress of any suffering, sin that keeps us estranged from God is the cause of our deepest distress.”
Today’s question: How do you assess your wholeness in regard to the health of your attachments? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Listen to the whisper – stillness”
