Broken.

The other night at church, we had an Encounter Night. The idea is that it gives you lots of different opportunities to encounter God. Prayer, offering, creative connection, etc. There were a couple of moments that really made a bit of a mark with me on that night, that I wanted to share.

One I very much didn't expect. One of the other guys at church - that I know quite well - said this to me while I was standing next to him: "When a candle lights another candle, it doesn't lose any of its light." It should be noted that we were standing just in front of a full plate of them then, hence the comment. But it was one that hit me, I think - because one of the things I think I'd always thought that when I gave to others, it was coming away from myself. I suppose recalling somewhat that phrase from Lord of the Rings - "I give hope to men; I keep none for myself." But that's not necessarily the case. And that was heartening to know.

The other one was when I went over to the drawing section. I'd had an idea for here straight away - a sort of gradient going through the colour Bible (as I remember it: green for the original creation, black for the fall/our sin, red for Jesus' blood, white for the purity Jesus gives us, yellow for heaven). Well, that was all well and good. But when I got to red, I wanted it to be really deeply in the paper. So I was pressing really hard on the pencil. And it tore through the paper. And then I thought - actually, that works. So I proceeded to do a diagonal tear pretty much across the whole paper in the middle of the tear.
It showed to me that Jesus didn't just cover over sin. He didn't just plonk it somewhere else. He broke himself, putting up a barrier between us and sin. That doesn't mean that we will never sin - but it does mean that when he cleanses us, sin will never cover us again.

I thought that that was pretty cool :)