There’s a reason He called us His Body and not His Estate.”

That’s what Tib Pearson told me.

Tib with his Red Wing work boots and worn John Deere hat and hands weathered and etched like a greying cedar rail.

“A Body is connected with sinew and vein —  and an estate is divided with fences and line.”

He said it with his hands, the way a man of the land does, and you could see how his hands knew rusted wire and gnarled barbs and how to free things caught in fences.

~Ann Voskamp

Lord, I want to be a free thing…

Jesus came to set me free

on some days I just feel like rusty wire is jabbing my skin

and gnarled barbs are pinning me down so I cant move

You made us your body -The body of Christ

and at times we act like we are not connected

to anyone or any thing

isolated mini rulers of our own lives

dis-unified and stagnant

stuck in our dis-function and defensiveness

But when set right, like an arm in a cast after a breaking

when connected by sinew and vein

the blood of Christ flowing freely between

is this not the Grace that we search for

People say Grace – it is unmerited favor!

what does that even mean to a generation

who feel as if they are entitled to everything?

They walk with the stench that it is the duty of the world

to favor them unceasingly. I wear this stench too.

like rotten pockets in my soul

But this is not grace … it is a spoiled view

true full out Jesus grace

connects us to other people

their lives the fertilizer of our souls

our weaknesses to bear with

their strengths for us to learn from

creating a garden of growth and togetherness

We become family and families take care of one another

share meals, love even through the tough stuff

We are connected by sinew and vein

with Life Blood flowing between us

We are not the Estate of Christ

we do not divide His inheritance

building fences and dividing lines

of what’s yours and what’s mine

But is that not how we live at times…..

~Starla

 

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