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Broken Joy

In the Fall of last year, I attended a prayer event just a couple of hours from home. I began my time there with cautious hesitation, not sure what I would think about everything that I anticipated was to happen. The first night came and went, and I had not experienced anything that made me uncomfortable or had stretched me too far. The next morning, we began again. There was worship and teaching and prayer. Late in the morning, something began to change for me. I can’t fully explain it, nor can I completely understand it. What I do know is that God revealed some things to my spirit, released some burdens from my life, and filled me with a renewed sense of his presence and power in my life. In those moments, I can vividly recall the emotional response that I experienced. It can only be described as a sobbing cry. Some people might call it the “ugly cry,” but whatever it was, it was coming out of me not because of sadness or because of conviction, but because of my thanksgiving for what God was doing for me in that very moment.
In Luke’s book, a story is shared about a woman who has experienced the forgiveness of Jesus. She had a storied past that we don't fully see, but can begin to imagine. Jesus forgives her of her sin and what was probably only a few days, she finds him again in the home of a Pharisee where they are having dinner. This woman shows up to the dinner, and as Jesus talks, she is there behind him. She begins to weep; not just a cry or a whimper, but a sobbing cry – you know, the ugly cry – that produces in her tears sufficient that Scripture tells us she begins to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears (Luke 7:38, NIV). It is hard to imagine what all this woman was thinking about, but I would say that she was having an incredible expression of thanksgiving and recognition of what Jesus had done for her.
In her broken joy, she cried, she let down her hair, and she began to wipe Jesus feet with her hair as she kissed his feet. Her actions were shocking and completely unacceptable by the standards of society at that time. Yet Jesus welcomed her response. He more than welcomed her response – he encouraged it. He encouraged her response because what she was experiencing was not a hyper-emotional response to a moment, it was not an act put on to see if Jesus would respond, she was not crying because she was in pain or because she was sick. She was experiencing broken joy because she had been forgiven. She was weeping because Jesus had done something for her. She was crying because it was a natural and normal response of anyone who really comes to grips with what the Savior of the world has done for all of us.
Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. It is something that we cannot offer in completion if we have not received it in full. Jesus gave this gift to the woman and he offers it to us, as well. We often become broken when we realize our sin and are confronted with conviction. But, don’t resist the spirit of broken joy. Broken joy recognizes what has been done, realizes its unworthiness, and weeps. Those tears that fall become a testimony, an act of service, the fruit of the Spirit within us, and more. The broken joy allows God to display his handiwork in lives put back together through the power of his mighty hand.  

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