Dear Jesus,
It’s the third Sunday of Advent. A season of joy. A season when we reflect on your arrival in the nativity scene, and all that your arrival will mean and has meant to the world. I’ve borrowed a song from Maverick City Music to help with my own personal reflections this month. They have a song, maybe you’ve heard of it 😊 - it’s called Fear is Not My Future. In the song, the writers make four proclamations: Fear is not my future, you are. Sickness is not my story, you are. Heartbreak’s not my home, you are. Death is not the end, you are. This morning, I want to reflect on the third proclamation; heartbreak's not my home, you are. Jesus, I have experienced broken heartedness in my life. I have experienced heartbreak rather recently. And the one thing I've come to discover about heartbreak - heartbreak always wants to become your home. It's like the cracks and holes in your heart suck you in and hope to keep you stuck there forever. I know you get it, Jesus. There's a scene in the bible when you learn your close friend Lazarus has died. The bible tells us: When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” and “Jesus wept.” You knew you were going to raise Lazarus from the dead. So your heart didn't break over the loss of a friend. Your heart broke seeing and feeling all the brokenhearted tears flowing for your friend. Just like you raised Lazarus from death, and soothed the broken hearts of your friends, you reach into the holes and the cracks of our broken hearts to remind us that heartbreak is not our home. And no, you don't always return those we've lost, lost through death or simply a change in seasons, but still, you refuse to allow us to accept that grieving our loss is supposed to be our new home. Even though it surely gets to feeling that way. I don't believe that time heals all wounds. All broken hearts. But Jesus, I believe you heal all of mine. You do because you are my home. You are my home and you know little can destroy my sense of direction on the way home to you like a broken heart can. Little stands in my way of finding the whole heart of the baby in the manger than the shattered heart in me. But Christmas is our reminder. Heartbreak is not a signal to retreat into the brokenness of our own hearts, it's a signal to reach for yours. Heartbreak isn't misdirection; it's invitation. Heartbreak is a signal to weep with you, like you wept with Lazarus' sister and friends, and not slip alone into the depths of our own tears. It's a signal to remember, no matter how much our broken heart begins to feel like forever - like home - it is NOT our home. You are. You voluntarily left our forever home to come into the very depths of a feeding trough in a manger, into the very depths of our every broken heart, to invite us home. Heartbreak is not my home, Jesus. You are. And during this season of advent, and during every season of every broken heart I ever face, I am thankful for that. Thank you, Jesus.
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
February 2025
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