Tara Thompson - Outside reading #3

I've made a promise to myself, and to God. A promise to be real...really real. I'm reading this awesome book by Larry Crabb called Inside Out. It is about real change. Larry is trying to explain that as Christians we so often try to cope with our feelings. We feel brokenness and so we try to bandage that brokenness with so many different types of things: relationships, ministry, food, and even scripture. However, nothing we do will end our ache for healing, at least not on this earth. The sweet thing is that God takes us in, broken and scarred, and He uses us to bring Him glory through it all. Here is a exert from the book...this rocked my world just fyi:


"God wants us to be courageous people who are deeply bothered by the horrors of living as part of a fallen race, people who look honestly at every struggle, who feel overwhelmed by what we see, yet emerge prepared to live: scarred, still troubled, but deeply loving. When the fact is faced that life is profoundly disappointing, the only way to make it is to learn to love. And only those who are no longer consumed with finding satisfaction NOW are able to love. Only when we commit our yearnings for perfect joy to a Father we have learned to deeply trust are we free to live for others despite the reality of a perpetual ache." 


I'm going to attempt to explain what this means to me...but I'm not so sure I can. This quote makes me want to be real. I have attempted for too long to cover up my struggles, burdens, and sufferings. I am afraid people will judge me, or feel sorry for me, or just not like me. The covering up stops me from truly living out love, though. Instead of meeting people where they are, I back away and run the other direction. Instead of showing people my heart, I close up and give them phony lies. I don't want to be that person though. I want to live: scarred, still troubled, but deeply loving. I don't want to look for satisfaction anywhere here on earth...I know the truth...that it only comes from the Father, and perfection will only be made complete in Heaven.