Yesterday Dave and I were cleaning the kitchen after dinner and as I reached into the drawer where we keep our plastic wrap I accidentally cut my finger on the serrated edge of the parchment paper box. Don’t ask me how, because I couldn’t actually tell you, but all of a sudden instead of cleaning up the kitchen, I was having to clean up myself.
As I prepared to write this blog today, I was thinking about my poor finger and worried about how much it was going to hurt to type on. Funny how sometimes the smallest cuts, depending on where we get them, (paper cuts are the worst) can hurt more than deep ones.
And that started me thinking about people who are walking around with wounds on their hearts. I’ve been there myself. Broken and scarred. Scared and angry. Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you’ve done something, or had something done to you that has left a wound on your heart that won’t go away. Something that keeps you from living fully and completely.
I am certainly not going to claim to have all of the answers and I don’t have a degree in psychology, but I have learned that the more I hold on to my pain….the more pain I have. It’s easy to do. It’s like a rock in the ocean of our heart. We keep rubbing away at it and pretty soon it gets smoother and prettier and harder to let go. But it’s still just a rock and no matter how smooth we rub it, no matter how pretty we make it look, it is still weighing us down.
Psalm 68:10, Psalm 111:5, Acts 14:17
God is our Provider. God provides everything we need to live, not only foot to eat, but also food for our souls. God does not give us things to enjoy life, but He gives us life so we can enjoy all things.
We were made to enjoy life. I said in an earlier post that I believe that as much as God acts as a force for light and love in this world, there is another force acting against God. A force that wants to you live in darkness and pain and fear.
So what am I saying? Give God your fear, your pain, your anger. His love is big enough to take anything and everything you can give him. One of my favorite verses is 1 John 4:18. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear”. Let God’s perfect love drive out your fear. 1 John 4: 16 “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” God is faithful and unchanging and patient. He will be there for you. He will provide for you. You can rely on Him.
I am so thankful that I knew Jesus in my times of crisis and turmoil. That the love of God was a part of my life even then, because I could turn to Him. I could give Him my wounds and my hurt and my anger and His love was big enough to take it. His love was big enough to heal me. I don’t carry a burden of past hurts with me, because God is carrying them for me so that I can enjoy the life He has given me fully and completely.
I’ve said before that I don’t believe that bad things happening are part of God’s plan for us. Just as we would never wish harm or pain upon our children. But I also believe that He has the power to use our suffering and sorrow to our advantage. To draw us closer to him, to share his love with us and perhaps help us to share his love with those around us.
If you are walking around with a wound on your heart, if you are still carrying your stone, no matter how pretty you think it looks, no matter how attached you are to it, it is still weighing you down. I pray that today is the day you give it to God. I pray that you can experience his healing powers just as I have in my life. I pray that you let him heal you so that you can live the life of joy he created you to live, fully and completely. Know and rely on the love of God.
God bless,
Meredith
finchmeredith1 
I’m from Mexico and a big fan of your work and David.
I try to write this as a compliment (read it that way) Also I hope that I can express my self and my intentions doesn’t loose in the translation.
One day I saw a post from David about your blog and I was curious and started reading it every day.
I am not Catholic or even believed in a God as such, not because I am an anarchist but simply because no one instilled it in me. However, I really enjoy your daily publications. I truly believe that the spiritual side of each being is very important and each person must navigate and nourish that aspect of their life.
Without going into much detail to avoid any offense, I believe that the spiritual life has as its goal to make us better to take care of each other and ourselves. Your words every day -although I do not understand the orthodoxy of your religion thoroughly- they leave me thinking and they accompany me every day.
Life is teaching you many lessons for me, one of the important ones is humility. Science has as a limit the answer to a question “how”, but religion and/or spiritual live can answer a deeper one “Why”, I think we need to humble and open ourselves to bigger ideas.
I’m not plan to became Catholic or try any other religion (that ship is long gone), but I try my best to see with bigger eyes and look inside myself, reach higher levels of consciousness and understand that the limit of my mortal life is much more inferior and incapable of an understanding of things and their distant causes.
1 Corinthians 13:11 and 12
1 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
(I hope a quote the Bible correctly)
I study in a Catholic school so I use to read the Bible and I like it very much specially the Book of Job and The Gospel According to St. Matthew.
Best
Alberto
P.D.
I Try to contact you last week in NYCC, but I never had time and the only time I can see you was when many people are waiting for you, so instead, I’ll tell you my comments in this brief response to your publication.
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Alberto,
Thank you very much for your message. I agree with you that we all must take our own spiritual journey and I also believe that God always meets us where we are. I love that you are constantly looking inside yourself and trying to reach higher levels of consciousness. I’m so glad that you have found something positive in my posts and I hope that God continues to reach out to you. I don’t think a relationship with God is about a religion as much as it is about what you know to be right and true in your heart.
God bless you. Meredith
P.S. I’m sorry we didn’t get to connect this year in New York, but I look forward to correcting that and spending time with you next year.
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