Greg talked today at church about how much shame he recently realized he carries and how that shame and brokenness and ineptitude sometimes completely cripples him, that it's difficult for him to live in the reality that Christ loves him regardless.
C.S. Lewis wrote this: "[God] works on us in all sorts of ways. But above all, He works on us through each other. Men are mirrors, or "carriers" of Christ to other men."
The longer I am in "intimate" relationships with others, the more and more I am finding that I am a lot like Greg. There are things about myself that I've been able to hide from myself and certainly from others, that I carry a lot of guilt and shame and hurt from things that I should be free from. But it's also in that relationship that I am beginning to experience healing-- that I am finding that if a finite human can love me inspite of who I am and what I've been through and done, then how much more could a compassionate, good, loving God love me?
Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives.
Henri Nouwen
So maybe, for me at least, the fallacy lies not in believing that I can't be loved for who I am, but believing that God (and others) couldn't possibly love me for who I am, in all my messiness. Maybe the error here is that deep down I question whether God is loving and good.
The smallest reflection of God, I'm discovering, can be found, like C.S. Lewis wrote, in others. That they demonstrate finite pieces of an infinite God.
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