Beholding Jesus

                Have you ever been in a season where it feels like everything feels like it is going wrong, but in reality, everything is going right? When your world is crashing down on you and your whole body is crushed by the impact? When God feels so near, yet so far away? When it seems that every emotion in the history of the world is mixed in a blender and then poured out on your shoulders? When your heart feels like it just cracked in two and it will never be woven back together again? And it hurts so bad that your whole body feels like mush? That is how I feel right now.

            You may be wondering, “What does this have to do with the alabaster jar?” Well, I will get to that in a few paragraphs.

            We all know that God will never give us more than what He knows that we can handle, right? But what about all the times He purposely breaks our hearts? Maybe this does not occur very often, which I cannot say that it has occurred very often (if at all) in my own life. God is so faithful and merciful that He breaks us in the most loving ways. He breaks us when we need to be broken. He breaks us when He wants to do something new and exciting in our lives. He breaks us so that He can mend us, which does not make much sense to me. But I do not like to question why God does what He does. But why does God do what He does? 1. Because He can, because He is God. 2. To catch our eye and to fascinate us. God loves to show off. He loves to show us His power.

            God is doing a lot in my life right now. In the past, I never knew what He was doing until after He was done doing it. And sometimes, it took a long time for me to understand what He was orchestrating. It is rare -in my life- when God will let me know what He is doing when He is doing it. It is a blessing when He does let me in on the secrets, which is a rare occurrence. It is the mystery of God. But on rare occasions, the mystery is not so mysterious.

            This past week has been really hard (to put it lightly). You know all the questions in my first paragraph? Yeah, that has been my week as of yet. This week has been the hardest week of my life. But God knows what He is doing and – better yet – I know what God is doing. Now, some of the things that He is doing right now are rather personal that I do not feel like I can share at this time. But one thing that He is doing is breaking my heart. In a good way.

            I have a lot of pain in my heart from things that has happened in my past and I know that God has been in the process of healing those hurts for many years. But He is bringing it all up to the surface now and He is doing some deep cleaning in the deepest parts of my heart. I have been in so much pain this past week that I have often felt like I cannot go on. But, like we all know, God never gives us more than what we can handle.

            God told me that He is breaking me down so that He can build me up. And it is a hard and painful process, but I know that in order for me to grow anymore and come into the things of God on a new level, I must be broken first. It is not fun, but I have excitement and joy (sometimes) when I think about how much God is going to be able to do in me and through me when this process is over.

            What I am going through right now makes me think about the woman with the alabaster jar. She goes to Jesus and breaks it over Him. When I read this, I think about the Father and the Son. The woman being God and Jesus being the Son. Just imagine it this way; God goes to Jesus just before He is to be crucified and suffer the most gruesome death and He breaks a jar of perfume (or blessings) over His head. When Jesus is crucified, He feels broken and defeated. But here comes the Father, and through His Son’s death, He saves His people from eternal damnation. Through His death came life. Through my pain and brokenness will come strength and wholeness. Through my “death” will come “life”.