Cracks In Your Soul
Normally, in my daily routine of doing yardwork, my mind is at ease and all I think about is the music in my ears. Yesterday, however, I noticed some things in my yard that made me think about things in my life. Here in Kansas we have some pretty hot summers. Summers where we can go weeks without any rain. This lack of rain can take a toll on the landscape around you. As I was working in my yard, I noticed huge cracks in the grass begging to be watered. Cracks that have been formed because the surrounding landscape has been depleted from so many of its needed resources.
It got me to thinking about how this is synonymous of our life! How often do you feel like the “cracks” of inadequacies in your life are starting to overtake you. We all have cracks in our lives where sin and fear sneak in when we don’t take heed and water it and keep it closed. Cracks from a painful childhood that may creep open when we aren’t careful with how we are addressing current issues in our life. Cracks from a heartbreak. Cracks from emotional hurts. Cracks from the failure to act in faith. When you start to see these cracks becoming larger in your life, it’s time to take action to take care of them! When they are ignored, just like in nature, consequences will happen. In nature, if moisture isn’t applied to dry ground, you will start having foundation issues. When you let sin and fear and past mistakes take hold of your life, you too, will start having foundation issues.
I know I have lots of REALLY deep cracks that need to be watered and nourished and that it’s going to take a long time to heal those completely. You are not alone. You are not the only one who has done a particular wrong. You can and will write the rest of your life and not be defined by your past mistakes and sins.
“The wound in the place where the light enters.” -Rumi
God uses those cracks to enter our lives and shine. This is also your time to shine! When the cracks start to show and things begin to unravel, this is the exact time that things shift from comfortable to vulnerable. That can be a scary thing. But if you know anything about vulnerability, it signals growth.
WATER THOSE CRACKS!
We all have a natural tendency to seek to repair ourselves in different ways. We can wall ourselves off from the outside world and become shiny sharp-edged people who hurt everything in our path just because we are hurt. Or we can also use these cracks to show up for support and have a desire for wholeness while maintaining your integrity despite the pain. We all have one true way to water those cracks though. Personally, I am guilty of both. There are so many times, being a sufferer of depression, that I want to close my door to the world and not deal with anything. It seems like the easy thing to do at the time. There are also times that I go all in to work through my weaknesses to maintain the little bit of integrity that I have because deep down, I KNOW that there is a strength greater than me that will help guide and support me.
The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your soul. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. Isaiah 58:11
LET YOUR LIGHT BE SEEN!
We are all beautiful in our vulnerabilities and there is power in the light that shines through the cracks.
Imagine being a chick cracking out of an egg. Just like any birth (newness), it is painful and a struggle. Being that little chick inside the egg, I can almost bet it would be easy to give up. That little chick doesn’t know what’s on the other side, it just knows that its purpose is to be on the outside. Through the struggle and the times of wanting to give up, the chick starts cracking the egg. Little by little, light begins to shine through the egg. That light has POWER because the chick now sees that there is something amazing on the other side! It’s hard work, but through the cracks, amazing light shines through. The light of YOUR strength and the light of GOD giving you his strength. Be a chick and allow these glimpses of light to be seen. And once you are on the other side, share it!! Hold someone else’s hand as they stumble through their struggles. You don’t have to know all the answers. You just have to know how to be there and support them when they need it most.
“We are all wounded. But wounds are necessary for his healing light to enter our beings. Without wounds and failure and frustrations and defeats, there will be no opening for his brilliance to trickle in an invade our lives. Failures in life are courses with high tuition fees, so I don’t cut classes and miss my lessons: on humility, on patience, on hope, on asking others for help, on listening to God, on trying again and again and again.” -Bo Sanchez