1 00:00:28,870 --> 00:00:34,270 God builds in ruins. There's a kind of betrayal so 2 00:00:34,270 --> 00:00:38,550 subtle it looks like love. But it is not love. 3 00:00:39,670 --> 00:00:43,670 It's stepping into the place of Christ, making myself the 4 00:00:43,670 --> 00:00:47,110 sacrifice so someone else wouldn't have to break. 5 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:52,400 I thought if I absorbed the blows, softened the weapons, 6 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:56,480 swallowed the shrapnel, maybe then I would be safe. 7 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:01,920 Maybe then I would be loved if I didn't realize the breaking was 8 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:04,879 never mine to prevent. It was theirs. 9 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:09,120 And sometimes breaking is it's mercy. 10 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:13,960 I stood there bleeding and I called it loyalty. 11 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:19,160 I cut pieces off myself to keep the peace. 12 00:01:19,800 --> 00:01:24,120 I called it faith, but it was just self betrayal. 13 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:32,200 It is the slow erasure of voice, of hope, of need in the name of 14 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:35,480 survival. And what kind of relationship 15 00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:40,520 demands that? Only one already haunted by the 16 00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:46,600 ghosts of ungrieved sorrow, the poltergeists of war, the Spooks 17 00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:50,080 of silent rooms and shattered trust, it whispers. 18 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:57,120 Maybe if I'm small enough, soft enough, silent enough, I will be 19 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:02,120 loved enough to stay alive. But safety isn't silent. 20 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:08,440 Safety is the kind of love that leaves room to speak, even when 21 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:11,480 I'm wrong. Even when I'm messy, even when 22 00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:13,800 my words come out cracked and bleeding. 23 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:18,600 Safety is mercy, not fear. There's another kind of 24 00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:21,280 betrayal, too. It looks like power. 25 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:25,760 It roars like strength, and it's just the erasure of someone 26 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:32,560 else, the refusal to hear, the refusal to bend, the refusal to 27 00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:40,080 carry any weight but your own. It thunders. 28 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:44,800 I must demand enough, control enough, and crush enough. 29 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:48,360 Then I will be strong enough to stay safe. 30 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:54,960 But that's not power, not the kind Christ showed. 31 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,600 Real power walks on water and rescues the drowning. 32 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:05,200 Real power raises the dead. Real power lays itself down and 33 00:03:05,200 --> 00:03:10,440 picks up life again. Both betrayals are rooted in 34 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:13,120 fear. Both are hollow. 35 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:17,600 Both leave a void where love, just it, can't live. 36 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:23,480 And I see it now how often I traded pieces of myself to keep 37 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:30,280 the fragile, the fragile peace. How often I called it loyalty 38 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:34,760 when it was really loss. How often I gaslit myself into 39 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:40,720 believing that all suffering was holy, even when it just, it just 40 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:45,840 wasn't. I spent years trying to hold the 41 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:49,840 ruins together, cutting myself open to patch the cracks. 42 00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:54,280 When blood wasn't enough, I used tears, and when tears weren't 43 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:58,200 enough, I used skin. And when skin wasn't enough to 44 00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:00,320 hold it together, I offered up my bones. 45 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:03,240 And that was that was where I broke. 46 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:07,240 And for what? A house built on grief. 47 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:12,040 A temple for ghosts. But even as everything 48 00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:18,680 collapses, God builds. Not after the wreckage. 49 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:23,120 In the wreckage he builds with hands I can't even see. 50 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:27,320 I feel it. He builds on ground I forgot 51 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:34,160 even existed, hope blooming through frozen earth, a future 52 00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:39,400 breathing in the ashes of a past I tried so hard to keep from 53 00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:43,720 burning. Maybe it's only when we break, 54 00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:48,920 like really break, that we're finally porous enough to let him 55 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:52,320 build without getting in his way. 56 00:04:56,080 --> 00:04:59,480 I think about how easy it is to see the boundaries of my body, 57 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:04,040 like your arm is not my arm and my skin is not your skin, but 58 00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:09,320 somehow in the unseen places, the heart, the soul, the ties we 59 00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,280 call love, the lines, they just blur. 60 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:19,800 Where do I end and you begin? When love becomes a trauma bond, 61 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:22,600 we lose the ability to even tell. 62 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:26,840 And so I'm learning. Like the slow crack of ice in 63 00:05:26,840 --> 00:05:30,360 winter, like the stubborn green of early spring. 64 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:37,080 I'm learning to see the signs, the red flags, but also the 65 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:40,520 green shoots, the truth rising in the thaw. 66 00:05:41,120 --> 00:05:45,680 I'm learning that ambiguity is not the enemy, it's the soil 67 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:51,800 where discernment grows. And I'm learning that Christ is 68 00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:54,160 not a narrow perch beneath my feet. 69 00:05:54,280 --> 00:05:59,360 He is a wide and steady pasture, even when I can't see it, even 70 00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:02,160 when it feels like I'm balancing on the head of a needle. 71 00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:07,080 I don't have to make him bigger. I just have to let him show me 72 00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:14,400 the land that was already mine. And I'm learning not to erase 73 00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:17,920 myself for someone else's comfort, and not to erase 74 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:23,560 someone else for my survival. I'm learning to abide where he 75 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:29,640 builds, even as the old walls fall, even as the ground shakes, 76 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:36,760 even as the ruins smoke. I'm learning that in the middle 77 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:41,400 of the breaking there is already a new beginning. 78 00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:34,520 Yeah.