The World is beautifully broken

BOOK REVIEW.

PERMISSION TO SPEAK FREELY by ANNE JACKSON

I have read books before and have always had a book to put down awesome statements that I would use next time am in a speaking engagement or better still, in my everyday conversation. Anne Jackson hasn’t given me a chance to do that. She makes me want to rip my heart apart, let the world see my pains and just realize how beautiful life can be with its pains and gains too!
She has given me a chance to go Second.
The world, the church… everyone has often lived a life knowing that there is really no permission to speak freely because in our heart of hearts, we always ask ourselves, “who cares anyway”, “everyone is hurting, so why burden others with issues that don’t matter to them?” The truth of the matter is; people care, they are and everyone is always looking for one or two, a person who would listen and understand. There is; someone said, in every person an insatiable need to be appreciated, accepted and approved. I call it the three needed As.
Accepted, that yes! It is really bad but it is OK. That, ‘buddy look here, my wound hurts too.’ That, I am also in pain; you think you can help me?
Anne Jackson has helped me realize that there is a purpose in communities. That there is a reason God calls His Church, His body. It is His body because sometimes the hand has got to apply oil to the head; that arteries need to supply blood with glucose to the brain; that when the feet ache, whole body parts take a break to rest because they need the feet; yet…there are parts that know, when others rest, they have got to keep going. Like the heart! It has got to keep beating!!
We all need each other.
And we are never alone: if only we are strong enough or even just a little to say, ‘am hurting’. Then shall we realize our healing. James5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed”
It is in confession that we find our healing. Confessing and not admitting sin. Being able to come to a point of accepting the Grace of God to work in your life.
Can Church then, be a place of refuge? Rescue?
Only when we realize that we are all products of the Amazing Grace.
When we understand that the church is not the buildings nor the clergy
But that the church is you and I
Beautifully wrapped in Grace.
Wounded soldiers nursing one another and fighting on.

Again, thank you for a book creatively expressed.