Hope at the End of your Rope

I have a reputation among my friends for making people cry. In fact, when I teach if no one cries, I am disappointed. I am not sadistic, I promise. I just know that I have been called to really plumb the depths, and if things stay on a surface level, I know I haven't done all that was needed.

My heart is bent toward those of us who have or are experiencing life in its most raw, when we are well aware of our fallen state, when the hunger for Heaven growls in our soul.

I want to touch pain. It's funny. I am extremely, absurdly squeamish with any physical injury, but I run to the front of the line to nurse the emotional mutilation that real life sometimes inflicts. I'm probably like that because I had a childhood full of many things good, some things tolerable, and some things horrific. Sprinkle on a fair amount of my own sin and find a mess! I have had many years of good, solid Christian counseling and learned how to process my pain. My history fuels my ministry.

Let me be perfectly clear: I cannot bind up the brokenhearted. That beautiful, hope laden phrase is tucked sweetly in Isaiah 61 and repeated by Jesus in Luke 4 as he described what He came to do. What He alone can do.

I do not have it all together. I do not have all the answers. I don't even know all the questions! But I know Who does, and my heart is fierce about running into His safety when I am wounded.

There are old wounds and ones that are new everyday, but His mercies are also new. Not in a cliche, but in a real, can count on it more than my own breath way: He is trustworthy. He is fierce about applying Himself to our pain, and only He can bring hope in the rest of the promises in Isaiah 61: freedom for the captives, release for the prisoners, comfort for the mourning, a crown of beauty instead of ashes, praise instead of despair. Sounds good, doesn't it? It is. He is.

It's God's economy for me to try to give away what He's given me. He loves to take those damaged places in my soul, in yours, and use them to show off His glory. He takes my wounds, applies His healing balm, and then wants me to tell my story and thereby pass the tube along to other Christian relationships.

That is my faith based intention by writing in such a way to touch your pain. I want to be some tiny part of the Holy Spirit applying His healing touch to your wound. We so often live in fear of the wound, but it is there we find our Jesus in the most intimacy. It is there in the raw that we are transformed. It is there where we find Him trustworthy. It is there that we fall in love with Him. It there that we see deeply, clearly, that it really is so great a salvation.

Thank you for reading. Please know I am praying for you even now, and I would love to know how I can pray for you more personally. And hold on. His grip is so tight that you just need to sit still on His hip and find Him ever faithful. Like a toddler, hold on to the One who is holding on to you.

So....here you go! Take some time to find some hope and healing balm in Alecia's articles. And don't forget to drop her a note. She loves to hear from you.

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Hope at the End of your Rope

by Alecia Klauk

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