Sunday, February 17, 2008

in the end...

Past the point of exhaustion and sanity and hope and all that makes us function as normal human beings, we reach the end of what we think we can handle. And then if we're lucky, we realize that we still have faith, and that even though we can't SEE or TOUCH or often HEAR God, He is there in the end.

And in that moment, the end becomes the beginning.

God's pulse beats for us. It stopped beating for us. The challenge is to believe it. And to communicate it to high schoolers who think they have reached the end of what they can handle or want to handle. And we get a tiny glimpse into the heart of God, knowing what it is to feel frustrated and helpless watching a student you love WANT so much to give it all up and really LIVE...but not having the strength to do it. It's a choice you can't make for anyone else, the decision to believe in love and Life and hope. It's infuriating to watch hope slip through her fingers like water through a sieve. And all the love you try to give, you try to smother her with it in hopes that it punctures her skin somehow, that it reaches her heart...and she won't take it. She won't believe in it. She won't trust it, or you, or anyone else for that matter.

And it's heartbreaking. It's a heartbreaking world.

Sometimes I think, in the end, that once our hearts are broken we have two choices. We can either leave them lying on the floor in pieces, or we can use all the strength we have to bend down and pick them up, holding them in our hands and crying out with all we are for the faith we need to let someone else put them back together. And while we hold those pieces, the blood runs through our fingers, our own blood pouring out of us and dripping to the ground, our lives seeping out of us in slow, steady drops. Which is why we mustn't hold on too tightly, or the wounds will never heal...we cannot do this alone. It is foolishness to believe that we can solve our own problems without the help of someone whose pulse beats Life into our dying hearts.

Yes, die to the old.

But choose Life.

All we can do is choose Life. Every single minute of every single day for the rest of our lives. I choose the abundant Life that Jesus came to give me, Life to its fullest, the only Life that sets me free from drowning in my own blood and living through His.

3 comments:

Keith said...

Sounds like someone just spent the weekend with high school students.

That was deep bro...

I don't know why but I thought bro would be fun to type right there.

Tyler said...

TLDR

Anonymous said...

It is not about highschool. there were plenty of people that poured their knowledge and wisdom into me when i was in highschool and i was not in the right mindset to listen. i am sure they thought by my lifestyle that they were watching me fall apart. And they were, i was wild. however, its not about THEM, its about something bigger. sometimes it takes some hellish things happening to you, and as a result of you to lay open your hands, see the peices of your broken heart, and let God do the healing. Many adults and teachers would have veiwed me as a total waste at that time, but they did not see what GOd had yet to do in my life, through those hardships. Now there is a testimony of God's timing, his ultimate transformation, and how he can take all broken peices and make it beautiful, influential, and empathetic, and constantly aware that i need to depend on him to choose life for me, for the time i am weak. we cant do it, we are not supposed to be able to. but man can we call the one that can.