backwards

"When the compassion of Christ is internalized, made personal and appropriated to ourselves, the breakthrough into caring for others occurs. In the mystery of divine wholeness, the way of compassionate caring for others brings healing to ourselves, and compassionate caring for ourselves brings healing to others. Solidarity with human suffering frees the one who recieves it and liberates the one who gives it through the concious awareness "I am the other."
Wether it be a lakeside retreat or the journey of life, our expectations are the greatest obstacle to union with God i the present moment. It is Jesus who writes all the lines, all the words, and all the letters of our lives. Do i really know what is best for m? My vision is so shortsighted, my horizon so limited. Surrender is a practical application of confession-- what we pray each day in the Lord's Prayer, "thy will be done." Abandonment is the triumph of trust in our life." B. Manning.

I hardly ever pick up his book without being deeply encouraged.

I always wondered about that divine connection between extending the compassion of love of Christ to others and the healing that brings to our own souls. Do we give because we can't stand ourselves? Do we give because we have been given too? Or can it, at many times, be both. I believe there is healing of our own brokeness and disapointments as we look to fill the brokeness and lonliness of another. But the key is the heart.

They key is loving out of the love we have been loved with.

It's another window into the past, and in a strange way, perhaps some ounce of answer to the void questions. In His goodness, he allows me to reason with things that rest still.

I know I trust Jesus as far as my feet have taken me. I love Jesus to the greatest degree that i've been broken and experienced His healing. I'm not sure how those that have experienced little heartache grow their heart for Jesus - that isn't a critisim, but an honest question.

I find a reason to rejoice in some of the disappoints that previously marred my own life.  Because out of the depth of hurt flowed a depth of assurance over time that the love of Christ has extended to so much than i could have imagined. I would never not want to deal with issues because of the great joy and freedom radiates from a risen Savior who heals, redeems, and brings new life. I am not particularly gifted, beautiful, eloquent of word or speech. But He is, and there is a great relief to know that i never have to measure to be as much.

So it's with that somewhat backward approach i start to wrap my head around the informal interview i have next week. Kinda backwards, but i think it works.