Love Heals

I've been home for 20 days.  It feels like ages ago I was curled up with a cup of tea in Scotland chatting with some of my favorite people in the world.

...time passing...

The time I spent in Scotland was genuinely one of the most incredible experiences of my entire life.  I can't even begin to say anything compared to it.  Nothing will ever really compare to that time unless I go back to the same place--which I do want to do someday.

Let me explain something to you.  This heart in my chest had developed a distaste towards the churches in the States.  Not necessarily just my home church, but also the churches spread across the States.  This distaste was a result of incredibly judgmental eyes picking apart thing after thing.  It's quite difficult to express that thought.  It's sin that's been festering within me.

God tore that down.  He ripped it apart and showed me how foolish and stupid I was for even crossing that line and picking at the church, saying "Oh, you aren't doing this, this, or this.  The true church should be doing all of these things, as we're commanded in the Bible."  What was I doing by doing that?  I quickly realized this summer that I was burying my own sin.  Rather than looking at what I have done, the ways in which I've been sinning (recognizing my own sin), I've been instead looking at the sin around me.  I've been doing that very thing for years.

Churches across the world struggle with so many things.  Each with it's own set of problems, each not always realizing their faults (which all of us do).  No church is perfect.  NONE.  I cannot even begin to tell you how hard that hit me this summer.  Nothing in-particular gave me a vision for that.  That lesson was purely a lesson God had chosen for me to learn this summer.

...time healing...

I believe God allowed me to be in the midst of so many loving people this summer for a reason.  He knew I was needing to be around people to really love me and care for me in the simplest of ways, and then in the largest of ways.  That love healed my heart.  Over.  And over.  And over. 

...love heals...