My parents-in-law are moving into a retirement home today. One of the challenges for them is to chose carefully what items to take with them to the new place.  They are moving from a full-sized house, and the challenge could be overwhelming.

If I could only take one thing with me to a new home, what would I take?  perhaps I would just refuse to go, like Granny of the Beverley Hillbillies…

My Mother in law is thinking of choosing a comfy chair.  That makes sense, having a good place to sit and read, and think and remember…

This reminded me of something by Mike Mason:

Brokenness

Psalm 51:8
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Do you have a favorite chair, a place where you feel most at home and comfortable? So does joy.  Joy’s favorite chair is your sadness, your weakness, your grief.  Wherever your wounds are most tender, joy finds a soft place to settle.  A lighthearted person may rejoice, but no one has greater capacity for joy than one who is, like our Saviour, “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3). Joy loves our brokenness best.

in Lent, it can be helpful to connect with our hurting places and examine them with the Man of Sorrows. He is acquainted with grief.

http://mikemasonbooks.com/nonfiction/