I sit with active pursuit of turning pages. As each page moves me towards the end of the book I hear the almost silent sound of thin, crumpling, pieces of paper. I wonder how many wounded hearts crush these pages out of anger from the overwhelming weight of grief…

I think of how numerous the amount of people that take for granted the gifts within each paragraph, each sentence, each word weaved together to give us the hope of eternity. Do they look at these words through spectacles of punished lives? Do they, in turn, think God is punishing them?

Do you know scars are visible decorations of pain? Whether they reside on the inside of our souls or the outside of our flesh, they bleed before they heal. They hurt before they callous over. They stretch our knowledge of truth before they challenge us to continue to pursue hope.

Are these scars intentional? Are they meant to push us to hunt the Almighty?

The area is an expansive gray space, and I don’t know the answers…

I do know that fresh wounds require peace to heal properly. And I also know that the stirring of self pity and questions of why, after enough time has passed, can leave wounds gaping open, unable to heal, and void of peace.

Before you abandon His will you must examine yours…

We want, what we want, when we want it. Putting on longsuffering isn’t easy. Longsuffering is just another word for patience, and I have often thought the word should be flipped. Instead of longsuffering, why not just say suffering long? After all, that is what it means. And even after we’ve suffered for any length of time, it doesn’t mean we will get what we want.

However, if we continue pursuing Christ, we will receive what He wants. And spiritual maturity is accepting His will instead of ours. The result is satisfaction. When was the last time you were satisfied?

His will is nutrient rich. Yet, for some reason, it’s hard to reach for the life-giving power of who He is when we are continually striving for what we want or who we want to be.

Sometimes a detailed evaluation of His will verses our own, begins with silence.

Silencing the noise at all costs can lead you straight into what you have always needed but never realized you did. This noisy world entangles us. It forces one foot to walk one road while the other walks a completely different direction. We are torn, and instead of silencing the voices that lead us to self destruction, we silence the only One voice which leads us to hope, grace, mercy, and peace.

The Christmas season can inevitably stir feelings of pain and cause our scars to become inflamed. We miss those who have gone before us. There is never enough money and because of that… there is NEVER enough time.

This Christmas, let’s work to silence the world and listen to the Creator. Let us remember why we gather to celebrate and allow our scars to rise up and worship.

We have a King. His name is Jesus. He isn’t the baby in the manger anymore. He is the risen Lord!

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

Love,

Jennifer

PS: I’m giving away a copy of Ann Voskamp’s new Christmas book, The Greatest Gift. You can enter to win, here.