How letting ourselves be changed helps others
Today I am remembering when You told me, "I'm going to crush you with love." I was looking for weighty conviction, a spiritual-feeling burden, hard to carry. What You offered seemed weak in comparison. Little did I know the shattering that would follow. I watched in awe as walls that had been built on decades of harshness melted like wax at a whisper of Your mercy. And, as always, the relentless love You used to capture me was meant for so much more. As I learned what it meant to be seized by love, I became able to seize others. As I experienced the softening that comes from a gentle answer, a soft touch, mercy instead of wrath, I began to extend it to those in front of me. I watched as those hardened by abuse or abandonment began to melt under the steady stream of Your love. Joy replaced fear, confidence replaced cowering, friendliness replaced resentment. That which I had feared was weak proved instead to be a more powerful instrument of change than any religi...