I find myself wandering the terrain of my heart today, mostly in the valleys of betrayal, disappointment and need.
As I look up from the valley floor the cross is easily seen, Jesus there bleeding as He drinks the cup of judgement and takes my sin and the sin of the world upon Himself.
Down here in the twisting turning valley strewn with stumbling rocks and thorny branches I seem to move from scenes of feeling betrayed to being the betrayer, from having disappointed to being the source of disappointment. It's cold down here, and bit damp too. The walls of the valley floor reflect back faces to me, friends and family. Relational tension is thick in the air.
I can feel the presence of forgiveness, the ache for forgiveness needed and the desire to extend forgiveness.
All of this because of the cross.
It is a sobering day, one that begs taking the time to stop and feel all my feelings, letting truth wash over my soul.
Today I am reminded that Jesus paid for all that is down here in my valley. He paid for the sin that has harmed and marked me, He paid for the sin that I have committed that brought harm and marked others, all the sin that has left me separated from The Father. And yet, the relational tension remains in places of unresolved hurt, where somehow what's embraced as true is that His sacrifice wasn't actually enough.
I am so guilty of not believing the cross is enough, not believing Jesus is enough. My primary strategy for managing my life has said again and again that the cross isn't enough. The repentance for this is daily, sometimes hourly.
Today there's a call to release the tension with someone, tension that's there because I've not been ready to let go. There's no recovery from what happened, no going back to before, what's been lost cannot be restored. And, I've started to see that it can be redeemed, and as I have opened my heart up to feel what God is doing in the wake of what happened I have felt my hand loosening its grip around the anger and now the pain.
“The cross, brutal and bloody, where innocence paid for every dark deed ever done.”
It invites me again and again to live something better than a life mired down in shame, guilt, contempt and revenge.
So much to surrender, more letting go.
So much peace and love to welcome in the space opened up.
The journey of forgiveness continues.