Tag Archives: affliction

the beauty of affliction

The phone rings several times and I almost hang up before she answers.

I talk. She listens with her gaping wide-open heart.
She talks and I hear… with my gaping wide-open  heart.

There are no words to say, to fix, to heal… apart from the words
of the One we both are knowing more day by day.
The One who *knows* us even more.

She speaks and I listen harder when the words come.. from that deep place she’s been many times before. The place where joy comes in the morning… through the mourning.

“You get to choose how much of the grief you’ll wear.” she counsels.
“You can keep stirring the pot and more will come up to the surface and you get to decide what to do with it.”

Stirring the pot.       Yes.

Jesus, who speaks through this affliction,  speaks from affliction… for the afflicted.

For us.
For the nows. afflicted crying camillas

We recognize Him………in the breaking…. the breaking… the breaking.

And I know what I must do.

Stir the pot and use what comes to the surface to feed others who find themselves here…

hurting and hungry.
Thoroughly confused and thirsting…
For the Bread of Life… for the Living water.

He did not let this cup pass from Him.
Neither did she.
Nor will I.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our affliction,
so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction,
with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings,
so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (ESV)

The table is open. Come. 

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