Cracked Coffee Cups and Fissured Souls

Tap tap tap.

Clock says 11:00 pm.

Tap tap tap.

That’s a knock.

On the apartment door.

My door.

11:00 pm?????

I looked out the window.

Small woman standing in the rain leaning my way to look IN the window.

Eyes meeting.

She jumps back and starts crying, hand rubbing her face hard.

I opened the door and she cautiously stepped into Challenge House 7.

Sherry she asks.   I nod and she opens her mouth and the ugliness of her night, her week, her life comes struggling out in torrents of words, dripping from her lips much like the raindrops dripping from her clothes.

Coffee

Let’s get hot coffee

Poured into cracked mugs

Cracked much like her broken heart and fissured soul

She was suffering …..Hardships no one should have to go through And the cracks in her soul were deep.  Not acknowledging those cracks that come hand in hand with the dust of this broken world will create a lifetime of THIRST…THIRST to fill our hearts to the brim with the things of this world, then wondering why we always feel empty when the day is done.

THIRST for soul-deep peace…THIRST for validation…THIRST for acceptance…THIRST for Unconditional LOVE

Yet there is no person or privilege, program or accolade that can fill us up

We were born with a broken heart.

Seeping souls.

ALL OF US.

We can chase after intimacy and dreams and wants and desires

We can paint our faces and buy new outer clothes, but our efforts will just slip into a paltry pool of disappointment until we give our broken hearts to JESUS!!!

JESUS is the only one who can hold us tight enough to seal the cracks in our fissured souls.

JESUS is the only one who can wrap his nail scarred hands around our hearts and hold us so close that we will never LEAK AGAIN!!

Jesus holding our hearts means our hearts can hold HIS love.

So, tonight, as the rain streams down on the metal roof of Challenge House, and those cracked coffee cups sit on the counter,

I pray for her.

And I’m praying for me, too.

I’m praying that one day, she will choose to place that broken heart of hers safely in Jesus’s hands, and let her life be filled with HIS RAZZLE-DAZZLE LOVE

Filled to overflowing

Nothing ever again SEEPING through the cracks of her soul

“Lord, I am overflowing with your blessings, just as you promised.” -Psalm 119:65