Tag: faith

Binding Up the Broken Heart

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography2 Comments

I saw this section of fence while out on a walk. It’s been neglected for a very long time. No one tended to it by painting it or mending it, yet it still stands, held together by roots and branches. It’s still there, but it is shattered in places and vulnerable to the attack of weather, lichens, insects, and age. It reminds me of a broken heart held together by coping methods, but not by love. It’s still standing, beautiful in an interesting way, but decaying.

When Jesus read out his personal manifesto (recorded hundreds of years earlier through the prophet Isaiah) in the synagogue in Nazareth, he told the people one of his purposes was to bind up the broken-hearted. Why bind? Why not heal instantly like he did for the blind and lame?

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God chides the shepherds of Israel for healing people superficially and failing to “bind up the broken-hearted.” I wonder if it’s because a heart shattered by process requires process to heal. Wounding through episodes of neglect, rejection, abuse, betrayal, disappointment, and loss (and all the other consequences of living in a fallen world) happens over time. Someone told me once that if the damage occurred in relationship, healing needs to occur in relationship. Jesus offers that kind of loving relationship that wraps the heart in swaddling bandages to keep it protected while healing.

The compassionate are continually wounded by not only assaults on their own hearts, but by what they see and feel around them when people they care about suffer deep wounds. Sometimes, it’s all too much. They “fall apart.” Without the arms of their Saviour holding them together and binding up their own wounds, and strengthening them with empowering grace, they would succumb to false comforts that would use them and leave them vulnerable to the elements of fear, distrust, jealousy, despair, unforgiveness, and apathy.

Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted – if we will let him.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.

Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV

Marvel

On By Charis PsalloIn nature, PhotographyLeave a comment

“When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?”

-Psalm 8:3,4

I marvel at God’s handiwork from the most miniscule particle to unimaginable distances in space. I am fascinated by the power of the sun’s explosions and the sensitivity of tiny cilia in the inner ear. I marvel at his strength and his gentleness. God’s omnipotence is so perfectly under control that the most vulnerable person, broken by the cruelty of the world, can come to him, lean her head on his chest, call him “Abba,” and know she is perfectly safe.

One

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Word prompt for today’s Lenten meditation: One

What image could possibly describe something so unique –so holy– as the concept of oneness and perfect unity? “Holy” means set apart. God is holy. The only God. Wholly other. Unique. One.

As I meditated on this I kept going back to the source of all life, the moment when God, in perfect unity, spoke, “Let there be light.”

If we can’t fully understand the power of perfect unity in the Godhead, how can we understand how One so holy makes it possible to be in Christ and He in us? What kind of power is released when we are perfectly aligned with him and therefore with others who live and move and have their being in the Three-in-One?

It’s a mystery.

Any single image will be totally inadequate, but I thought about light and refraction and how prisms show us the diversity of colours within light. The sun shining on crystal in a local shop window display caught my attention. Many facets, one Light.

“I am not praying only for these men but for all those who will believe in me through their message, that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, live in me and I live in you, I am asking that they may live in us, that the world may believe that you did send me. I have given them the honour that you gave me, that they may be one, as we are one—I in them and you in me, that they may grow complete into one, so that the world may realize that you sent me and have loved them as you loved me.” – Jesus, recorded by John the Beloved in chapter 17 of his record of life with the One in human form, Phillips translation 

Old Things Have Passed Away

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Word prompt for today’s Lent meditation: Old/New

I saw these old dead flowers in a flower bed by the church down the street. When I had my own garden I gathered spent flowers and threw them in a compost bin. Later, I shoveled the unrecognizable rotted material into the garden and worked it into the soil.

I suppose that if we are what we eat, plants are what they eat too. The nutrients in old dead flowers become green beans or sugar peas or sunflowers that may bear no resemblance to the plants of the former season.

The transformation Christ creates in us is even more dramatic. He says that baptism is a symbol of the old self dead and buried and the new self raised and living a life transformed. Holy Spirit is in us to oversee the change into the image of Christ.

“For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

We get a re-do, this time with access to the throne of Creator of the Universe — the Three in One who has never lost a battle.

Longing

On By Charis PsalloIn Animals, ArtLeave a comment

As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you, Lord. (Psalm 42:1)

The more I taste of God’s goodness the more I long to feel his heart.

Today is the second day of creative meditations for Lent. The word prompt for today is “Longing.” It’s a dull dreary rainy day here, so I broke out my watercolour paints instead of going out to look for a photo. In the process, I realized this longing for more of God is deeper than I anticipated.

More, Lord, please.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” These are the ones who recognize their spiritual need, the ones who have tried and know they can’t make it on their own. To the spiritually downcast he gives a promise: “for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

The psalms written by the Sons of Korah are about the journey back from rebellion and shame. This is in Psalm 42.

I say to God my Rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”
 My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Sometimes God plants a glimpse of higher things right there on the ground where the downcast can find it.

Look up. Your redemption is coming closer.

When You Just Don’t Know

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Winter2 Comments

“Where is peace to be found? The answer is surprising but clear. In weakness. Why there? Because in our weakness, our familiar ways of controlling and manipulating our world are being stripped away, and we are forced to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are most vulnerable, the peace that is not of this world is mysteriously hidden.”

Henri Nouwen

Sometimes it’s not until we have reached the end of our ideas, our energy, and our optimism that we are ready to ask God for wisdom. Sometimes it’s not until we wait –for we know not what– that we can start to hear the voice that speaks in silence.

He often starts with, “I love you. Do you know that? Do you know that?”

Radical Demonstrations

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, Sky, Trees and forests, WaterLeave a comment

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who are abusive to you.”

Jesus Christ (Luke 6:27, 28)

What if what is missing in the lives of people who hate you, who want to see you silenced, cancelled, dismissed is an experience of grace? What if people who don’t deserve it (like all of us) experience the goodness of God through the blessings of those they shun?

What if we prayed for and not against all the people Jesus loved so much that he gave his life to reconcile them to their creator?

What if those of us who know what it means to have been loved by the Lover of our souls while we were still far from him come out and demonstrate? What if we come alongside our haters in radical demonstrations of the love he has poured out for us?

Feels counterintuitive, doesn’t it? It would take a radical shift in our first-reaction mindsets.

But what if Christians believed Jesus? How would culture shift?

Jesus Christ, the ultimate revolutionary.

Rise Above

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized2 Comments

“Anyone can rejoice when life is going well but maturity is defined by the quality of our celebration in oppositional circumstances. I think rejoicing is designed to give us an experience of God’s joy especially when we are in times of difficulty.”

Graham Cooke

I had a dream about wild dogs and mountain lions attacking innocent pets on the ground in a forest. Then I saw a bird. As she sang, she rose higher and higher. Her song of praise lifted her up above the fray and above the sound of the snarling aggressive beasts. The beasts slunk away.

I still have trouble walking very far, although I am much improved over last year. My desk is now in front of what we used to call a “picture window.” From here I can see rush hour traffic backed up at the lights a few blocks away, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles speeding down the road. I can lift my eyes and see the hills and mountains covered with fresh white snow and above that the sunrise and ever-changing vista of the sky. I particularly appreciate the sky lately.

I’m wondering if we are in some sort of flyway because birds pass by my window all day long. I was never a birdwatcher before, but I am starting to pay attention. There’s an osprey that flies between its perch on a tall fir tree and the deck railing of a luxury apartment. Ducks, geese, crows, and seagulls are regulars. Even an eagle passed by at eye level a few days ago (too fast for me to grab my camera, alas).

I envy them. I wish I could fly. Then I am reminded that I can, in a way. Rejoicing, thanking God for his kind provision, and worshiping his goodness and lovingkindness raises my spirit above the fray where frightened angry people attack each other and prey on the innocent.

How much sky do you need? How much love and grace do you need? God is generous. He lavishes grace on those who respond to him. Don’t be afraid to enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise and ask for some.

Sun Rise

On By Charis PsalloIn faith, Photography, SkyLeave a comment

“Fear imprisons. Faith liberates.

Fear paralyzes. Faith empowers.

Fear disheartens. Faith encourages.

Fear sickens. Faith heals.

Fear makes useless. Faith makes serviceable.”

-Harry Emerson Fosdick

For years I watched the sun set. Now I watch the sun rise.