Wounded For Fragrance

Our life is full of brokenness...bitter 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~

The other night I attended a presentation by someone involved in helping former sex-trafficked young women transition back into 'real' life after being rescued.
A couple of young women chose to return to a brothel. When one young woman was asked why, she replied honestly, "It is more painful for me to walk through my pain in counselling." Going back to the brothel, she could dissociate or detach herself from the pain. I cannot even begin to imagine the layers upon layers of untold horrible wounds inflicted on these young women from the time they were children and sold by their own parents. 
Deeply and horribly wounded.

Faith Barista's word prompt today is "Wounded".
The Free online dictionary defines 'wounded' as someone with a wound:

wound n.

1. An injury, especially one in which the skin or another external surface is torn, pierced, cut, or otherwise broken.

2. An injury to the feelings.

There is not a single human being who has gone through life unscathed from wounds, multiple wounds.

We, as a people, are the walking wounded.

Physical wounds, the ones people can see, do heal, sometimes leaving a scar depending on the severity of the wound.

However wounded feelings and broken hearts are many times stuffed inside and we create masks to hide them. Illusion. For unknown to the sufferers, it reveals itself in how they respond to life circumstances, to particular people, to God.

In both cases, physical and emotional, untended wounds will fester and the infection will spread unless tended to. Unless cut open and cleansed in a timely manner, more pain will build up slowly as infection takes hold. Sometimes an antibiotic ointment or healing balm may be applied to hasten and ensure proper healing for a physical wound.

Emotional wounds in a similar way must be cut open with the help of the Great Physician. He gives us the Holy Spirit as Comforter and Counsellor. He gives us His living Word to bring new life. At times He uses human agents, Christian therapists, as His Hands and Voice.

But if not dealt with, these wounds can fester and infect all those around us, become bondages and then strongholds, and can even be passed on through generations. If you look at your generational sins, you will find certain sins that repeat itself, sometimes being manifested in different forms, like addiction for example. At some point, someone must face up to the sin, to the pain, and break that stronghold.

The longer you take to lean into that pain, the more it will hurt, the more pain you will inflict on yourself and others.

I empathize with that young woman. In trying to write snippets of my life, I have found it to be quite painful. As such, I believe that you should never go back 'there' on your own. You should go back with Someone safe, to protect you, to assure you of their Presence and Help.

Go back with God and you will soon see that He was always there. At times, you may need a qualified counsellor to help you sort through emotions and thoughts depending on the status of your wounds.

I remember the first time I experienced major trauma, I immediately sought God through prayer and Scripture. The Psalms became such a balm for me. I found that I could 'lament' like David and then allow God to filter out my raw emotions through His Word.

But then there came a time, when with aggressive participation from Satan, traumatic circumstances piled on within a relatively short space of time, leaving me no time or energy to 'filter' and so I stuffed my pain deep inside as I fought to keep my head above water. (See here for more details.)

Since that time, I have struggled with depression and mild PTSD that have placed limitations on what I am able to do. God has used Bonnie (Faith Barista) and other writers and theologians in recent times to point me back to resolutely walking down that Via Dolorosa to confront that pain head on, to crucify it on that Cross, to allow His cleansing and healing power that came from His blood being poured out literally and figuratively for me.

So I am in that process. 

I am filled with hope of what lies beyond that Cross.

If I had a choice, I would avoid being wounded at all. But God knows that it is my woundedness that will draw me to Him, the Wounded Healer; that will change me to transform me more and more into His image.

(Hebrews 2:9-10 (AMP)9 But we are able to see Jesus, Who was ranked lower than the angels for a little while, crowned with glory and honor because of His having suffered death, in order that by the grace (unmerited favor) of God [to us sinners] He might experience death for every individual person.

10 For it was an act worthy [of God] and fitting [to the divine nature] that He, for Whose sake and by Whom all things have their existence, in bringing many sons into glory, should make the Pioneer of their salvation perfect [should bring to maturity the human experience necessary to be perfectly equipped for His office as High Priest] through suffering.

Jesus, the Son of God, chose to undergo excruciating pain. He did it willingly and resolutely.

Why?

Just so that I could be reconciled in relationship with the Father.

Out of love. 

Amazing love. 

A love of mystery.

A love I choose to embrace.

A love that has supernaturally filled me at times when I obeyed His nudging to connect with people who offended me. Seeing people through His eyes and heart allows you a glimpse of how much He loves each of us and also reveals who the true enemy is and always has been.

So yes, today, I praise Him for my wounded state which draws me to Him, which is being transformed into threads of glory pointing to an ever increasing glory that will culminate when we see Him face to face.

So, will you join me in allowing His surgical Hands to cut, cleanse and heal your wounds?

Let us touch Him and allow Him to touch us today.

Remember:
Untended wounds will bring a foul odour; a stench.
Shallow perfume-treatments give an illusory coverup and will fade.
Tended wounds bring healing and newness of life.
It brings His eternal fragrance, always fresh. When others breathe it in, it brings healing.

"Beauty From Pain" by Superchick

The lights go out all around me
One last candle to keep out the night
And then the darkness surrounds me
I know I'm alive but I feel like I've died
And all that's left is to accept that it's over
My dreams ran like sand through the fists that I made
I try to keep warm but I just grow colder
I feel like I'm slipping away

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today, someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

My whole world is the pain inside me
The best I can do is just get through the day
When life before is only a memory
I'll wonder why God lets me walk through this place
And though I can't understand why this happened
I know that I will when I look back someday
And see how you've brought beauty from ashes
And made me as gold purified through these flames

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today, someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

Here I am at the end of me (at the end of me)
Tryin' to hold to what I can't see (to what I can't see)
I forgot how to hope
This night's been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn

After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today, someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

Linking up with JamWithMeThursdays at Faith Barista:

Stay [With-Me]

Matthew 26:36-42 (AMP)

36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He told His disciples, Sit down here while I go over yonder and pray. 37 And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to show grief and distress of mind and was deeply depressed. 38 Then He said to them, My soul is very sad and deeply grieved, so that I am almost dying of sorrow. Stay here and keep awake and keep watch with Me.

39 And going a little farther, He threw Himself upon the ground on His face and prayed saying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will [not what I desire], but as You will and desire. 40 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and He said to Peter, What! Are you so utterly unable to stay awake and keep watch with Me for one hour? 41 All of you must keep awake (give strict attention, be cautious and active) and watch and pray, that you may not come into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. 42 Again a second time He went away and prayed, My Father, if this cannot pass by unless I drink it, Your will be done.

The Free Online Dictionary defines 'stay' as:

stay 

1. To continue to be in a place or condition: stay home; stay calm.

2. To remain or sojourn as a guest or lodger: stayed at a motel.

3. To stop moving; halt.

4. To wait; pause.

5. To endure or persist: stayed with the original plan.

6. To keep up in a race or contest: tried to stay with the lead runner.

7. Games To meet a bet in poker without raising it.

8. To stand one's ground; remain firm.

9. Archaic To cease from a specified activity.

Nowhere does the humanity of Jesus pour out so conspicuously for me as in this scene in Gethsamane. He knew or had a sense of what was coming. The dread that must have filled him was enough for Him to realize He could not do it alone. He needed support. He needed loved ones to 'stay with Him.'

Yet even though He told them of how very grieved and sad He was, and specifically asked them to endure with Him, stay awake with Him, they could not.

Instead of feeling rejected and angry, He chose instead to exhort them, understanding that their spirits may have been willing, but their flesh was weak.

In fact He told them in John 16:32 (NIV), 

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone.Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me."

He knew He was not truly alone.

I remember specific times when I longed for certain people to 'stay with' me and the terrible feeling of abandonment that filled me when no one was able to be there.

I also remember when certain loved ones could have used my presence, a 'stay-with' presence, in their moment or season of crisis, and I was unable to be there. Not because I did not want to, but circumstances at those times made it impossible for me.

I often wonder if they felt deliberately abandoned by me.

But God has said He would never leave me nor forsake me. So the truth of the matter when I look back is that there was always that Unseen stay-with Presence with me or with my loved ones in crisis.

There was only ever One Person who was truly abandoned in the moment of His greatest suffering on earth. It was He Who cried out, ...about the ninth hour (three o’clock) Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?—that is, My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me [leaving Me helpless, forsaking and failing Me in My need]?

At that moment, He truly was, for on Him all our sins had been laid, and God in His holiness, could not look upon Him and turned away. It was the agony of hell, of spiritual separation from God, that He experienced with and for us. For in our natural sinful state, we too are spiritually separated from God. When Jesus stayed [endured, stood firm] for us on that Cross, He took the punishment due us. His innocent blood washed away the stench of our sins.

And now, when we believe and accept this as His gift to us, offered freely, we get to be restored in relationship with the Father. We get the promise of His 'stay-with' Presence because of Jesus staying, enduring that Cross.

Thank You, Father, for staying in love for an undeserving sinner.

Thank You, Jesus, for staying on that Cross and enduring the impossible for me.

Thank You, Holy Spirit, for staying in my heart to comfort and counsel and convict.

May I be imbued with Your 'staying' power, to endure to the end, to stand firm, to stay-with. On my own, I cannot, for as You know, the spirit is willing but the flesh is oh-so-weak. Anoint me with Your power, O Lord.

Help me to stay with You, no matter what. I know that You have promised that You stay with me always. But I leave You so many times and end up miserable. 

I want to stay with You always. In the good times. In the bad times. I need Your help.

Linking up with Faith Barista's JamWithMeThursdays for today's writing prompt "Stay".

Remembrance

Today's writing prompt from Faith Barista's JamWithMeThursdays is the word "remembrance".

And today, Wednesday, I find myself going back to someplace where I can find warmth, sun, lightheartedness, and fun.

Yes, today, there is yet another snowstorm and my senses are in winter overload here in Toronto.

Hence, my need to get some island therapy: island beats with pictures to make me forget for a while what it is like outside; to make me remember good times:

) ) )

But Jesus asks us to remember Him in the act of communion, a symbol to bring back the memory that He gave His Body, His life for us.

He calls us to remember His vicious death which bought us life. It is a memory He desires us to keep alive every time we take the bread and drink the cup.
I hate to remember His pain as much as I hate to remember mine. Bad times.
But in recent times I am being reminded that I must follow Him and face that road to Golgotha head on, march right up to that Cross, that pain.
That pain needs to be crucified.
Cleansed by His blood.
Freedom comes on the other side of the Cross.
That's where resurrection power happens.
Good times.

So why does He want me to remember? I can only speculate.

Probably because we humans have a tendency to shallow living until brought to our knees by some crisis.

Probably because we so easily forget why we do have access to God.
Probably because we forget we are on a journey of transformation, not of how to make life comfortable for ourselves.

Probably because He wants to remind us of His love for us.

Whatever the reason, I know I have much to grasp still.
It will always be somewhat of a mystery to me.

Luke 22:19-20 (AMP)

19 Then He took a loaf [of bread], and when He had given thanks, He broke [it] and gave it to them saying, This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.

20 And in like manner, He took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament or covenant [ratified] in My blood, which is shed (poured out) for you.."

re·mem·brance (Free Online Dictionary)

n.

1.

a. The act or process of remembering.

b. The state of being remembered: holds him in fond rememberance.

2. Something serving to celebrate or honor the memory of a person or event; a memorial.

(Linking up with Faith Barista:

)

Taking The Journey: Down the Via Dolorosa

Lenten season has begun. 
A time to reflect on the Cross and all it means.
Suffering, death, resurrection.

The Via Dolorosa - Jerusalem

It all starts with the journey down the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering.
And as this week approached, my husband and I were pushed headlong on to that road.
Definitely not our choice to take this route.
It felt like Satan had thrown the gauntlet down and hurled his largest and sharpest spears. They struck deep.
We were not hit totally unaware for we have seen and experienced his bombardment before.
But the extent of his hatred always shocks you and takes the wind out of you.
We were plunged into circumstances that said clearly, "Where is your God?" "Did God really say He was near, that He would never leave you?"
And we could almost hear the devilish cackle, "Ahahahaha".

But God.
He sent a sign of His 'seeing' and His lovingkindness through a human angel and we rejoiced.
How angry that made Satan.
He lashed back. Harder.
And this time he roared with laughter.
Instead of falling flat, my husband and I knelt together.
At the Cross. Satan pushed us to the Cross. Together.
How awesome is that.

My Bible reading from the Psalms literally became my prayer as I cried out to God, "Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy."
Satan's last blow has some serious issues that remain visibly unaddressed.
Did that leave cause for anxiety and disquiet?
Ummm, yeah. For a while.
Then God intervened, not with resolving the situation, but with turning my heart to Him, to His love, to His love letter to me, via this post from Lisa-Jo Baker - (In)Courage. She mentioned a quote from someone else that we were pre-approved; stamped with His approval of love. She said:

God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will.

Expect love, love, and more love!

What if you believed it?

What if you changed up the dialogue in your head? 

And so I did. And God led me to this video posted by Steven Furtick from Elevation that depicts God's unconditional love:

Elevation Creative: Unconditionally from Elevation Media on Vimeo.

And so instead of allowing the roil of anxious thoughts and lies, I chose to dance and enjoy the embrace of my Lord.

My Lord loves me and Oh, a wonder I see.

A rainbow shines through my window, my Lord loves me.

He died for me, on the Cross of Calvary.

He took my sins and my sorrows, He died for me.

I have to admit that when I think about tomorrow, I am filled with trepidation. But I'm learning to live in the present, to be grateful for His Presence now. He's got tomorrow in His Hands.

I am not alone on this journey. I have the best walking buddy, the best Guide.

That is why I can take the Via Dolorosa.

He walked it before I did and took the brunt of my pain.
I need to taste it, so I can be cleansed and be made more like Him.

But, unlike me, He CHOSE to walk that road out of His love for you, and me...

Listen to Sandi Patty as she sings this glorious song:

The journey continues.

Looking forward to connecting with you along the way and squeezing your hands.
May our Lord bless you this season. Thank you for dropping by.
Love, Sita


(Linking up with Faith Barista for her writing prompt "Taking the Journey" at JamWithMeThursdays)