A couple of times a year, my parish runs an eight-week series that teaches about the human heart and about finding healing and freedom in the Lord. It’s one of my favorite ministries to serve. People come from all different walks of life with unique stories, circumstances, and backgrounds, yet we all come together because of the universal experience of wounding, heartache, and our need for a Savior. We just finished this series a few weeks ago, and the Lord blessed me with many graces as I journeyed through the content with this group. One of those graces was the humble and childlike posture of the people who came. There is nothing quite like seeing a room full of adults, whose ages span from twenty to eighty, discover the safe covering of the Father and courageously open their wounds to his Son.

We live in a world that champions self-sufficiency and celebrates independence. We fear acknowledging our weaknesses and wounds, but underneath those fears is our desire for someone to respond to our sorrowful stories with compassion, gentleness, and love. We are all poor and in need of the Father’s love, whether we want to admit it or not. The great news is that it’s okay to be poor because the Almighty God has immense love for us, and every part of our hearts matters to Him. The invitation is to open our pain to his mercy. There is nothing too great or small, too trivial or complicated, too repulsive or burdensome, that his love can’t touch and transform.

I pray that today you dare to receive his loving gaze in the places of your life where you feel most vulnerable and in need, because it is in receiving his gaze that we will find the restoration and life for which we all ardently long.