stripped & broken

{image via: an (in)courage devo e-mail}
As many of you know I've been struggling with the move of my boyfriend Jared and his family over the last few days. Valentine's Day was so undesirably bittersweet. My mid week days this week were filled with the many random shades of blue melancholy-ness. Yesterday was the rough dumps, if you will. And today, well today was simply horrible, until I heard Him speak to me.

I am so getting ahead of myself here, so please excuse me while I back up a moment and tell you just exactly what I posted on my Facebook page before leaving for work today (and before spilling my soul to a dear friend through an e-mail, thanks "L") and then maybe you'll understand where I'm going with this a bit better.

My Facebook post at around 1-pm-ish today said:

"Oh, if I could but find a desolately populated (aka filled with no one) field right about now I would scream aloud unto my heart and lungs content."

Right around the time I had posted that whole screaming in a field post on my Facebook wall I had also just posted a little note on Facebook only moments before. I didn't realize it then, but writing that post on my FB wall after having read the e-devo that I had earlier this afternoon, the one that I had re-posted the little note on, I completely contradicted myself by writing what I did. There is a good thing that came out of writing that particular FB status though...connecting with someone else who is also currently struggling. God works in mysterious way does He not?

Anyway...

 This is the e-devo that I had read from (in)courage...

This fallen world never stops dis-membering who we are. We’re all breaking a bit more everyday, even in small ways. And there, even as we ache, is the gentle whisper of God. With the quiet urging to give thanks anyways, to do this in re-membrance of Him. But why in the world give thanks? Why in the name of heaven?

Because when we remember how He blesses, loves us, when we recollect His goodnesses to us, we heal — we re-member.

In the remembering to give thanks, our broken places are re-membered — made whole.

When we re-member all His blessings, we re-member all our fractures and in giving thanks in the assembly, it’s our very souls that re-assemble.




Even though I am seemingly broken at the moment over certain things (that I have no control over) I know that I can be re-membered by God. The Lord shells out numerous blessings upon us, His children, daily that we can glimpse if we would but open our eyes and will ourselves to see them. We can heal when we allow Him into ourselves. Our quite broken at times selves can be reforged....re-membered....if we allow Him to re-assemble our souls one piece at a time by laying ourselves at His mercy.

God spoke to my heart earlier today and said this (although I did not pay much heed to it at the time, and kind of just brushed it off when it was said to me): "I've stripped people in your life away from you because I want you to lean on me more and not on them, Sarah."

So if you are like me at the moment and you are feeling sort of stripped and broken I want you to know that only the Lord can re-assemble and re-member your soul. He will strip you down because He wants your focus.....and He longs for your heart.

Do you want to know what my updated FB status was this evening? 

It was this: 
"The reason He strips things and people away from you is so that you will have nothing left but to cling to Him."


6 comments:

  1. What a good reminder to us all. Thank you.

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  2. Ooh I read that article myself! I love reading what you got out of it - the article got me too, but in a different way. See, I've had anxiety & my emotions have been all mental for no real reason for a while now, and yesterday was one of the bad days :( It reminded me that in EVERY situation, I can give thanks to the Lord, even when things are less than brilliant :)

    And what a blessing you're going to get in this season of being stripped away and learning to rely on God alone! I'm seriously excited for you!

    God bless.

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  3. "The reason He strips things and people away from you is so that you will have nothing left but to cling to Him."
    I LOVE that. isnt so encouraging when God speaks to you?

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  4. I love the sentence you updated your fb status to. Thank you for sharing this lesson.

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  5. I remember going through a rough phase, even after we were together (my husbnand & I). Several things happened, and I found out the hard way that just because someone calls you there friend, doesn't mean much of anything. During that time, I found that Jesus was the solid rock I needed, and the friend that my soul longed for. He is good!

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  6. "Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as mush as when we learn the emptiness of everything else." C.H. Spurgeon
    He does certainly have times where He calls us to fall back on Him rather than relying on the encouragement of others, although it's nice to have that too. But I think He takes it away at times when we have come to trust in that rather than in Him.
    Painful now, but triumphant in the end!

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