**Before you being reading, sit down, breathe normally and be quiet for one minute.**
"For God was pleased to have all his fullness
dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross." Colossians 1:19-20
It seems odd that peace would come through blood. To think that peace needed blood. Many times I think of peace as merely the absence of
pain, turmoil, hardship. Sometimes this is true. Peace with God came through death, it came through shed blood. Who would have
thought that peace needed blood? The life of Jesus, lived perfectly, ended with a bloodshed death. The blood that dripped is the blood that has cleansed our lives and has reconciled us with God.
Jesus is our only opportunity for
peace with God. It started with the incarnation, the birth of Jesus when God was PLEASED
to have all his fullness dwell in Jesus. He was pleased to become fully human.
The humility of God is enormous and to take it even further, the humility goes
even to death, to the shedding of blood.
How has peace come into your life through hardship, through sacrifice?
**Sit quietly again for as much time as is available to you.**
Infertility has been one of the most grief-filled, faith taxing blessings in and on my life. I wouldn't be who I am without it. Faith has always been my strongest spiritual gifts and yet there were some major cracks in my faith foundation that I didn't know were there until being faced with the evil that is infertility. I had the opportunity to fix those cracks with lots of work with my Savior and I have the "opportunity" to revisit and strengthen that foundation time and time again. He does bring beauty for ashes.
ReplyDeleteCarrie,
DeleteYour struggle saddens me. I'm so sorry. I am grateful for redemption and re-creation. It is a beautiful thing that Jesus does from evil. Beauty does come from ashes yet I still wish there didn't have to be ashes!