3 Weeks of Grace Part #3: Broken

I took a 19-day whirlwind adventure around a few parts of Asia recently. I can't say I was expecting a lot, but I was surprised by Grace... (As usual, I hear you say)

"Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart . . . For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake . . . But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us."- 2 Corinthians 4

There's something about camps.
A few days of sharing breathing space with the same group of people and you find yourself at a place of vulnerability with this group.

It's why family camps are great for the church -- it was at my last family camp as a teenager that I first experienced a vague sense of call to ministry.
It's why I believe so strongly in the potential that exists in youth camps.

Or why retreats can be such a time of refreshment.

The primary purpose of my 19-day whirlwind adventure was to eventually land in Narita, Japan, for the Church of God Asia/Pacific Missionaries Retreat.

And what a time those 3-ish days were.

Simply sharing breathing space with my co-labourers in the region did more for my soul than I could have ever expected.

Somewhere between my return from Germany and that retreat, something broke inside.
Whatever that something was, it kept breaking over and over again that I wasn't sure there was anything left that I recognised anymore.

Perhaps it was a silly assumption that the move to Aotearoa New Zealand would be the season that would bring new life.
Because in the middle of the scramble to find new life, what was found instead, was a shell to hide under to pretend that nothing could hurt anymore.
And if nothing could hurt anymore, then nothing could break anymore, right?

But in that shared breathing space, it became safe for the shell to fall apart, knowing that whatever is left would be held by those who shared that same brokenness and that same breathing space.
And all the pretence that was began crumble as well.

For the first time since my three-month stint in Germany, I began to feel like myself again.

In the Grace that abound in that shared breathing space, there was freedom again.