'Worn'

 
Fear not, for I am with you;

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
 

 
This song has been my prayer today, my  plea. I am counting on the reality that God alone is able to speak the words my heart so desperately long to hear. Only He can fill the empty place that lies behind the fullest or the emptiest of lives. We are all incomplete, partially immortal, frustrated in our lack, created to be made whole by Jesus. Some of us just know our need better than others. We see the fraying edges of our lives, the hem of our very selves unraveling like the fringe of an old blanket.
 
Take a moment and watch this video. Listen to the words. Listen to the cry of a heart in need of God's redemption. That heart is yours. It is mine as well. Maybe (in its longing) it is something like God's heart for us as well. It belongs to all of us. God knows who we are. He feels our pain. That heart in need is the very thing God sought to write into His story. Your heart, my heart, longing for the heart of God because the heart of God longs for us.
 
Later in Isaiah and again in Matthew, we are told that Jesus "took our infirmities". He "bore our sicknesses". The context here is in his healing. Could this mean that when Jesus takes our suffering he actually knows our pain and joins us in it? More than simply taking it off of us, He takes it on himself. Can we take comfort in knowing that the heart of God feels exactly what our heart feels? Does that seem too incredible? After all, that heart in need is the very thing God seeks to write into His story. Your heart, my heart, created to long for the heart of God because the heart of God longs for us.
 
We are all in need. Only God is whole. We are all 'worn'. Only God is new. We are all longing, and I believe God longs with us. Only Jesus can make us whole. Only through the Christ will we never be alone again.

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