God is Love.

But His love demands vulnerability.

Risk.

Risking a whole host of emotions that threaten to overwhelm us.

Risking giving up protection for connection.

You see along time ago many of us learned that the risk was too much, that protection was safer, more dependable.

That the vulnerability that God calls us to was unbearable.

So in our pain we protected.

Sin, I think.

Protecting ourselves in ways that seem more sure than trusting God with the deepest part of ourselves

Feeling our pain, our betrayal.

To walk in love, in trust, in openness, was to be guarded lest we feel pain, be betrayed.

In the process of protection we lost pieces of our true selves, our design, our beauty

Piece by piece. Slowly. As to not really see the loss.

We lost our connection, with others, with the deepest parts of ourselves and with God.

Isn’t that sin?

To trust, seek wholeness apart from God. To seek protection apart from God.

In our self made trust and protection we turn to a host of things, what we traditionally think of as sin.

Things that temporarily numb, bring relief, satisfy the soul that longs to be made complete.

But the thing is never the thing. Sin I mean.

The thing we lose at an imperceptible rate is trust.

Trust in the one who fashioned us, formed our spirits, designed us for Him, for full life.

In our sin, our self- trust, we robbed ourselves of our freedom.

Freedom to live in the glorious beauty of our creator, our author.

Until in His goodness he offers us a glimpse of love, connection

And we remember anew our design

And we feel afresh our hunger for freedom

And in that space, that holy space, we feel whole.

Free.

Living out our glorious design.

Dangerous, but free.

In that space we vow to accept the danger of vulnerability for the feeling of freedom.

Accept the risk of pain for what it means to walk in the design that God has for our souls.

Vulnerability. Love. Connection.

Knowing that even the fragrance of vulnerable loving connection offers our hungry souls more than the protection of bondage that we have accepted for so long.

The risk of pain we can tolerate, even the pain itself. Our real fear is continuing to live in bondage, in sin. Separated from others, the deepest part of ourselves and from God.

In this pain, our betrayal is redeemed.

The Fire, redefining our story, refining us.

Vulnerability, Connection is not safe.

But our Father is sure and present and faithful. And he tells us that in danger, vulnerability, He is with us and that his love is more present than our fear