When I was a little nipper I had piles of soft-toy animals. I had a big bear called chocolate and a sweet camel called Humphrey (which may, in hind sight, have been a llama). There were piles of others who’s names I don’t remember, which I probably inherited from my sisters. But there was one special one, his name was Patches, because I had loved him so much even by the time names mattered, all his fur was falling out. He was a thin, mangy, beat up little bear. Half his stuffing had come out of the hole in his neck.
But if you looked at them all, it was easy to see the one I loved the most, the one I played with the most. If I gave a kid a soft-toy, I would want it to look like that after a year. I would want it to be destroyed. Because that’s what love is. You cant go everywhere with something, play with it, hold it close everyday, without changing it, without messing it up.
This is why I love Broken Christians. People who rejoice in way God messes them up. Who, like the soft-toys who were willingly thrown out of second story windows, they approach life with the expectation that God will play with them, turn them upside down and shake them…
Dear God
Let die in me the expectation that following you will be comfortable.
Let my heart rejoice, that you break me open on the rocks of this life,
That you use me, play with me, love me and challange me.
Until the day I fall ragged, broken and overjoyed into you arms,
I ask for nothing more then this difficult life you bless me with.
Amen
Beautiful.
Stunning even.