Psalm 34: Sweetly Broken

"Taste and see that the LORD is good; 
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them, 
he delivers them from all their troubles.  
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit."  v. 8, 17-18

It took me a while to want to write about this Psalm.  Mostly because I had no idea why I drew this image.  Its the picture that flooded my mind's eye when I put pencil to paper, and so obediently, I drew it.  And immediately I didn't understand it.  It didn't fit the verses.  It didn't depict a butterfly that was tasting goodness or going to a place that was a refuge.  I wrote in my journal, "Why would God bother to go through the painful process of transforming us, only to bring us from one broken home to another?  This doesn't look like God is saving anything 'from their troubles.'  It's like He's showing it where to go to find more of them."   I'll have to draw something else one day that fits better, I thought.  But nothing ever came to mind.

A few days ago, I was thinking about brokenness and scars and the ugly and hard part of loving a God we don't understand completely.   I know I'm a little late on the bandwagon, but I've been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  When I first started reading it, I felt like I put on her dirty smudged glasses, and as she writes, she slowly, painstakingly is wiping the ugly away, letting me see the beauty of her world and our God.   It is, like David writes, a slow tasting, and a sweet seeing.

She writes, "With memories of gravestones, of combing fingers through tangled hair, I wonder too...if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. 

To see through to God.  

That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond.  To Him.  To the God whom we endlessly crave."   

 

Could it be that this tasting and seeing the holy God wholly can only be understood when we first taste the saltiness of tears?  I've let out a dozen holy groans from my bowels, realizing how beautiful the ugly is.  It is both the ugly and the beauty of the cross, the sacrifice that brought Him nearer to us so we might find a refuge in Him.  It is how He is close to the brokenhearted, because He, Himself, chose to be broken for us.

I finally get it.  I've tasted the ugly, and come out seeing the beauty.  Only God can do that.  Isn't He good???