As a lover of both words
and the Word,
I’ve pondered
not just their power
to motivate and mend,
but to destroy and deceive.
It is a strange
and sobering calculation
when dispensers
of what is holy
sully the message
with behavior that bears
little resemblance
to the goodness they proclaim.
There is no virtue in eloquence
when mercy is withheld.
No merit in ministry
that is divorced from compassion.
Voices ring with conviction,
yet fall silent in the face of devastation—
quick to step into the spotlight,
yet slow to stoop
for the ones Jesus would have stopped for.
What good is doctrine
if it does not stoop?
Faith that makes no room
for the lost, the broken,
the wounded, the weary—
is not faith at all.
It is theater,
demanding the applause
meant solely
for an audience of One.
Unlike those who
substitute zeal for love,
and ambition for faithfulness,
𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑑.
Always.
To wash feet.
To lift the fallen.
To touch the leper.
To welcome the outcast.
He did not speak love,
He became it.
And in doing so,
He made a way
for the forgotten
and cast aside to
know His love.
I trust not in platforms or polish.
Not in coveted titles or lofty positions,
but in the One
who never walked past
a single soul in need.
Who did not need a stage
to prove His authority,
but chose instead
to display it
through servanthood
and humility.
My own healing delivered
and my scars finally fading,
my laments are now few
but my love is loud.
My prayer?
That my hands bear witness
to the mercy I’ve received.
That I stoop, too—
not to conquer
but to comfort,
not to condemn
but to carry,
not to take
but to become
all that Love requires.
And if the wounding taught me
to see what others ignored,
if it carved out space in me
for tenderness, for truth,
for the kind of presence
that costs something—
then it was not wasted.
𝐼𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑑.
Because in God’s economy,
what breaks His heart
becomes the very ground
upon which redemption grows.
The pieces others discard
become the components
He gathers,
mends,
and offers back
as healing
in the hands
of the formerly broken.
So we learn to give thanks
for what almost destroyed us,
understanding that sorrow’s
propensity to crush
actually cultivated within us
the very compassion we now
freely offer to those
left alone and in pieces.
Do not despair, dear ones.
All of it mattered.
None of it was wasted or overlooked.
So take heart.
Your ache was not in vain.
The unjust wounds
that once marked you
blossomed into a place
where mercy could take root.
What once threatened to undo you
instead became the thing
that held others together.
This is the miracle:
That the sorrow which hollowed you out
now makes room
for a love wide enough
to welcome others in.
This, too, is holy.
And it is beautiful beyond measure.
“I’ve come to see that it’s through the deepest suffering that God has taught me the deepest lessons. And if we’ll trust Him for it, we can come through to the unshakable assurance that He’s in charge. He has a loving purpose. And He can transform something terrible into something wonderful. Suffering is never for nothing.”
~ 𝐄𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐭
“He stoops to conquer.”
~ 𝐂.𝐒. 𝐋𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬