Sunday, January 1, 2017

Love, Heal Me

            “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”  (Psalm 34:17-18)  


            “Love, Heal Me” is one of my favorite songs by my favorite band, The City Harmonic.  It’s about being broken down before the Lord and crying out to Him in your pain.  It’s about bringing all of your weakness and hurt to the Lord and letting Him – whose name is Love – heal you.  (And I love, love, love the opening line of "Fell Apart," another favorite song by that band.  One of the best lines ever written.)  
            This has been the kind of year I have had.  2016 has not been a good year.  Between a panic attack (a new thing for me), a mild nervous breakdown, almost losing my mother several times (due to a ruptured gall-bladder which led to sepsis. . . she told me that she was so near death that her life actually "flashed before her eyes," in a collage of moving pictures on the hospital walls), my fear of being the worst homeschooling mom ever, a situation that someone else got us involved in that could have gotten us into big trouble with the wrong people, another situation that I can’t talk about yet (let’s just say that it’s a big one), growing disappointment with our church over an important issue and wondering if it’s time to look for another church, and constant anxiety as I tried to get my feet back under me again . . . between all of this, I have been a wreck.




            There have been days when I didn’t want to get out of bed.  Days I couldn’t get out of bed.  Days I did get out of bed and had to fight for hours to keep the slithery fingers of anxiety and depression from reaching their way deep into my heart and mind.  Days when I wondered if I’d ever be “normal” again or if anxiety was going to be my new constant companion.
            And through it all, I have found tremendous help in the songs of The City Harmonic.  This is why I named this blog after one of their songs that has helped me so much.  When I couldn’t even pray because I was too broken for words, I would listen to their albums and let their words be my heart’s cry, my prayer.  (If you are struggling with hanging onto your faith, buy all their albums.  I listen to them every day, especially when I feel anxiety coming on.)   
            Love, Heal Me is my hope and prayer for this blog, that you might find the encouragement, truth, love, and hope that you need to help you keep going in life, to help you wake up in the morning and face another day, knowing that God is right there with you and will help heal your wounds and fears as you sit at His feet and pour out your heart to Him.  He will make something beautiful out of the brokenness if you will let Him, if you will give Him the broken pieces. 
            He is love.  His love heals.  But you have to open yourself up to it.


            “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love.  . . . There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”  (1 John 4:15-18)


            “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”  (Eph. 3:17-19)


            This blog is mostly excerpts (in no particular order) from much longer posts on one of my other blogs - myimpressionisticlife.blogspot.com.  Those posts are huge, too much for some people to read.  So I decided to pull out the main points of those large posts and repost them here, making them much more concise and easy-to-read.  I hope they bring encouragement to the broken-hearted, peace to the anxious, truth to those who are searching for it, and love to all.  God bless you!