Broken on Broken
"Conviction without experience makes for harshness." - Flannery O'Connor
Broken people in community with broken people... it is hard. It feels like this has been a long standing theme of conversation in my office for a while now. Whether there are conflicts between roommates, family brokenness (both in and outside of Hope Street), or challenging conversations about where some of those boundary lines begin in gray areas it all seems to come back to the challenge that each of our own brokenness rubs up against an other's brokenness.
Most times it is real easy to see other people's brokenness and feel some type of way about it without seeing our own brokenness in the midst of conflict. We all do this in different moments. We harden ourselves to the experience and perspective of other people through our conviction of how people ought to behave; it becomes a barrier to community, it becomes a barrier to being able to grow, it becomes a barrier to seeing God's light shining through his other image bearers.
Father, Abba, Adoni, King of kings, Creator, Sustainer, the great I AM, thank you for your loving presence in each of our lives. I pray that you soften our hearts today that we may become like good soil, ready to receive you, to let you take root and grow us in your ways. Father, where there is conflict at home, between roommates, between parents and children we pray for a loosening of our convictions and an ability to see others as you do: as beloved. Father I pray that as we walk alongside broken people we do not lose sight or focus from our own brokenness and how you are walking with us in those areas too.
Amen,
Coop
