Finding God’s Love in Our WoundsSample

Getting Honest with God

I was born with a rare craniofacial condition that caused major brokenness on the left side of my face. When my wife, Anna, and I were falling in love, without realizing it, I would never allow her to show affection for my wounds and scars. Instead, I would subconsciously try to steer her toward the right side of my face. Until one day, fed up, Anna looked at me and said, “Stop that! Do you not think I see you? All of you? Do you not think I love all of you? Let me kiss you!” At that moment, I was very afraid and emotional. I had thought I had been hiding my brokenness from her and that she had been choosing to overlook the “unlovable parts” of me for the parts I imagined to be more worthy of love. Yet at this moment, she sliced that lie right out of my soul, revealing she did see all of me (even my brokenness) and rather than being repulsed by it, she longed to draw near to it with love because it was part of me.

I believe that when Jesus goes to the cross, it is God speaking to us with the same kind of honesty with which Anna spoke to me. When Jesus takes on our wounds and dies, this is God drawing near to our wounded souls, even though we are trying to hide them from him, and saying to us, “Do you not think I see you? All of you? Do you not think I love all of you? Let me kiss you!”

God is far more honest with our true nature and wounded lives than we dare to believe. And that honesty, far from bringing condemnation and judgment upon us as we imagine it will, instead brings his love. God’s honesty is how he comes close to our wounded souls just as Anna’s strong words allowed her to come close to my wounded face. And in that vulnerable place, God says that he sees us fully and loves us freely and that nothing in all the world, not even our deepest wounds, can separate us from his love in Jesus.