Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves. Many are the troubles of the just man, but out of them all the LORD delivers him. He watches over all his bones; not one of them shall be broken. The LORD redeems the lives of his servants."

Welcome back to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. It's March 20th, 2026, Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent. Today's guest presenter is Michelle Gardiner, a wife and mother from Dallas, Texas, and a longtime member of Souls and Hearts' Resilient Catholics Community.

In today's Psalm, we read, "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves. Many are the troubles of the just man, but out of them all the LORD delivers him. He watches over all his bones; not one of them shall be broken. The LORD redeems the lives of his servants." When I hear these lines, the ears of my little exiles perk up. The psalm speaks to their broken hearts and crushed spirits. He sees them. He knows the weight they carry. And these words are a cool drink for their deep thirst to be seen and known. Hope stirs when they hear that the Lord himself is working to deliver and redeem them. And my exiles did not just hear these words, they felt them. How deeply this message could touch them was a revelation to me. But then it went deeper. My eyes were drawn to the word "close," and I allowed it to sink in. The Lord not only sees our exiles and promises to rescue them, he is close to them. When something is close, it is near to touching, if not touching. And when you're talking about a person, it takes on an embodied dimension. So if I apply this to my IFS understanding of my inner system, this closeness becomes a very powerful reality. It tells me the high prison walls of my protectors are no obstacle for him.

Exiles may feel trapped and alone, but the Psalm tells us something different. The Lord is close, very close, and he invites our imprisoned exiles to turn toward him and allow their feelings of aloneness to fall away. Recently, an exile showed herself to me. I was able to see a little girl clinging to a chain link fence, wild eyed and starving. Everything she believed she needed, the safety and love of humans was on the other side of that fence, but she couldn't reach it. I also understood that the doorway to her freedom was guarded by a fierce protector who hated and rejected her. Left to herself, she became transfixed by a fear of him, making her unable to see or feel the love of self or God. She's in a real double bind. Fleeing her protector, she runs to the arms of the humans that surround her, hoping they can heal her. They do sometimes give her comfort, but they always disappoint because they do not hold the power to restore her worth or identity. The protector strategy of rejection makes him completely unapproachable, even though he holds the key to her freedom. IFS has helped me understand why we can't just get rid of this protector and jailbreak this sweet little girl. Parts cannot be gotten rid of and they can't be forced. The only solution is transformed inner relationships built on sincere trust and friendship.

God and self will not violate the way free will expresses itself through our parts. So for almost two years, I have focused on building a relationship with this protector so I could untangle the knot between him and my exile. I have made progress, but it has been very, very slow. My fixer part often takes over, convinced that if she just works hard enough, she can solve the problem herself. She ends up exhausting me because she forgets that true power flows from God into my innermost self. Meditating on this psalm has transformed my approach to my exiles. Instead of focusing only on untangling knots, I now return again and again, bringing them Jesus's care and closeness. I do not know how long some of them will have to wait for their freedom. Perhaps, like Moses, the promised land will be in the next life. But in the meantime, I can commit to soothing them while I patiently work to gain the trust of their protectors. I can soothe them with the message of this psalm, but not like a secret letter slipped past a prison guard, but with the Lord's own presence. In this way they can begin their heaven on earth. They don't have to be perfect or sorted out. They can still be frustrated and helpless and trapped in their prisons. But one thing they will never need to be again is alone.

Today's presenter is a member of the Resilient Catholics Community, and I can personally attest to how life changing this program of human formation has been for myself and for many of its members. If listeners are interested in learning more about this community, I invite you to check out soulsandhearts.com/rcc.

Let's end by invoking our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.