Isaiah 49: 14 – 16
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And the Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
“Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.
Dear Traumatized Child,
When you come home to Your Abba Father, you will be so excited. Like the woman at the well, you will run to tell others in your church about the depths of His love for us all. You will see women weeping and you will know they too have just experienced what it is to be seen and known in the depth of their wounding. You will rejoice as they too see that their faces are not covered in the shame of their sin, but radiant in the redeeming love of Christ.
But then, as you step out in faith and go where your Father asks you to, the thorns given you as a gift will at first pierce your resolve. You will share of the piercing with leaders you trust. You will share of the waves of fear and shame that are pursuing your body unto death, but instead of arms reaching out to hold you and truth arising to defend your soul, the thorns will be pressed even deeper still. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.
In the thorns piercing
Again and again and again
I remember
My shame.
But it’s then, God’s healing will truly begin to flow. As you join Christ in His suffering, you will begin to understand why you ran away all those years before. This time, you will turn toward your God in trust: you will cry out from your whole disease-ridden heart and listen for His Voice and new heart beneath.
Then, ever so slowly, through His patient teaching, you will learn to stop seeking sanctuary in a building, in religious leaders and in your own perfection and strength. You will learn instead to seek the sanctuary of Jesus Christ: our One True Hope.
When you cannot stand through the attacks that come, He will hold you and you will watch as He tethers your feet to the ground as you long to die. Your feet will not be moved, as you watch your very weakness testify to His power.
Each day, when the waves return, you will pour out your heart in Laments. You will be overwhelmed by His precious Word to you. Joy and peace will rise from deep within you, as He lifts you above the waves, even as you feel them crash and pound your flesh. You will arise in Him to glory in each and every Promise fulfilled.
But You
You remember
A covenant new.
You remember
My sin
No more.
You remember
Your Son’s blood
Covering me.
You remember
Grace
You remember
Your daughter
Adopted, Yours.
Then, as He draws you out and sets you apart for His purposes. He will teach you to stop soaking in shame, to stop apologizing for His obedience at work in you. To stop bemoaning your setting apart in your open confessions of sin and weakness, to stop fighting to be understood, to stop hardening your heart in sin and to instead fix your gaze on the warmth of His face melting your frozen heart to reveal His thread weaving eternity there.
You will rediscover the joy of praise and thanksgiving in the midst of your anguish. You will experience the healing power of praying for those who have pierced you and misunderstood you. You will come to love them with your Father’s love as you die to pride and self to obediently lay yourself down that you may bless them in becoming as nothing to them.
It’s then you will begin to taste the freedom of humbling yourself beneath the mighty hand of God. You will forgive and love your enemies, both yourself and others. You will daily learn to fully embrace His love and grace in your weakness and sin. You will watch Him strengthen your relationships and begin reaping fruit you have so longed and prayed for, but all but given up on. And oh how you will experience the peace of being still and knowing that – even in your weakness and sin – He was, is and always will be the One and Only God, the God who seeks and saves.
It’s then as the thorns continue to pierce, you will weep in thanksgiving for a God who loved you enough to be pierced for your transgressions. A God who clothed Himself in wrath: who took upon Him the thorns that pierced you as that little girl, the thorns you pierced into yourself, and the thorns piercing you upon your return. Why? For the joy set before Him: a healed and whole you, a healed and whole Body of Christ.
So that you and all His beloved, traumatized children would never ever have to bear the weight of these awful thorns themselves. So that these very thorns piercing you would become a gift of healing and redemption to you and to so many more through the resurrection life of Christ at work in you, through the living Word of God ever calling you to remember HIM, the joy set before you.
One day, you will weep for a God who chose you, even knowing you would harden your heart in sin. Knowing that you would turn away from the very piercing sent to heal you, sent to smash your idols and free you of your chains.
But this God chose you to give you a future and a hope – putting plans into motion not to harm you, but to bless you. For, through His piercing, He is rewriting your story of sin and death into a story of grace and resurrection life, ever unfolding.
One day, instead of believing He turned away from His little girl, you will finally see how He turned toward her. You will see how He held you in the palm of His hand all those years that you thought He had abandoned you.
You will see that He placed you exactly where He wanted you, right where the thorns being sent to hurt you would in His time, in His blood, redeem not only you, but so many more through His testimony flowing out of you, as you bow at the foot of the Cross.
And now
You’re teaching me
To remember too
To remember
You.
To remember
A crown of thorns piercing
Again and again and again
To remember
Love pouring forth
From a Cross.
To remember
Rejoicing
To remember
A cloak.
To remember
A ring
To remember
A table set
In the presence of my enemies
To remember
Oil
Pouring on my head.
To remember
In each and every thorn
I find more of
You.
My crown of thorns
You wore
You bled and died
To exchange my sin and death
For a crown of life
Beauty
Everlasting.
Beloved traumatized child, rejoice! Those thorns are not yours to bear. For the wrath of man shall yet praise Jesus; With a remnant of wrath He will gird Himself (Psalm 76:10 NASB). Because of the joy set before Him – you – He died on that Cross to take your crown of thorns upon Himself and to exchange that crown of thorns for a crown of life everlasting!
Much love,
Your Future Self, redeemed and restored by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of your testimony in Christ
Psalm 73: 21 – 26 ESV
21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Colossians 1:24 (ESV)
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotions, L.B. Cowman, p.388
It is not until a beautiful kernel of corn is buried and broken in the earth by DEATH that its inner heart sprouts, producing hundreds of other seeds or kernels. And so it has always been, down through the history of plants, people, and all of spiritual life—God uses BROKEN THINGS.
Featured image of rose by Edward Howell on Unsplash