Bad brokenness is healed by His good brokenness.
Some of you have been waiting oh so patiently for me to post this blog. I would like to start by saying thank you for waiting. I’ve had a lot of processing to do. This wasn’t something I could do and shove to the side without any thoughts considered. It was hard. It was breath taking. It was healing.
About a month ago now a beautiful friend and sister of mine came to me about starting a sort of small group that she wanted me to help her with. She said, it isn’t going to look like a normal small group. It’s going to be once a month with a group of 3 to 4 women each time and we’re going to have a sort of interactive experience. The idea of the group was based off of a story from the book Mended by Angie Smith and also the book The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp. In Mended Angie was told to break something and try to put it back together. Sound familiar? We do that, don’t we? When our lives begin to fall apart each and everyone of us try to put it back together without God’s help. Or maybe you’re like me and you gather up all the pieces and shove them under the rug for awhile. You shove them under the rug and keep pushing on because you don’t want to deal with your brokenness.
There is no one God can’t use and no one whose brokenness is too broken for God. We know this is true for our friends when we want to encourage them. Yet, when it comes to the places of our innermost sense of shame and regret, we often wonder if it is really true that God can work all things together for good for those who love Him. His love’s all around us everywhere. God has not forgotten you. God has not abandoned you. God’s love is around you, everywhere.
This message of brokenness has been so clearly given to us by God. This message that our brokenness is beautiful. My friend and I decided to call this group, Pieces. We want women to come with a mug or picture frame or cup, something they want to break into a billion pieces and then turn around and put it back together. To be completely honest I didn’t think I would be effected by doing this. I thought sure I’ll hit a mug with a hammer for awhile then glue it together. No big deal, right? Oh and it’s going to look so good when I’m done, right? Wrong. You guys, I cannot tell you all the emotions that came from that experience.
Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m not an angry person. I don’t just show that emotion. However, when I was hitting that stupid mug I was overwhelmed with anger. Over something that happened three years ago. I was overwhelmed with anger over things from ten years ago. I was overwhelmed with anger over things from one year ago. Things that were out of my control. I felt broken, I felt ugly, I felt sadness, and I felt anger. Maybe this is what real love feels like - a slight breaking of the heart, and a slight breathless surprise at finding yourself put back together into a kind of wholeness.
Putting the pieces back together is not easy. It’s frustrating and messy, you can get cut, and you can get burnt. The inevitable happens in this life: the heart breaks, rips right down the center, just where you try to smooth everything out. Those are pieces of you. Put a name to each piece and each crack. Putting the pieces back together I realized some will be missing. There are somethings in my life I can’t get back. Some pieces that have been broken into dust. Some of the pieces you’ll have to force back into place because they won’t fit like they did before.
For me, when I finished putting all the pieces back together I sat there staring at it. Staring at this mug as if it was a representation of my life up to this point. I saw shattered, He saw whole. I saw broken, but He saw beautiful. He was helping me to see and believe that He is restoring me piece by piece. Maybe the love gets in easier now. Maybe where the heart’s been broken the love gets in easier. Maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest wisdom.
I want to encourage everyone who may be reading this to, let go of the grief and the sorrow. Release the anger and the plans set in stone. Don’t waste your struggle. You serve a glorious God, and even in the broken shards of life, He is worth everything we can offer Him. God does great things through the greatly wounded. God sees the broken as the best and He sees the best in the broken and He calls the wounded to be the world changers.
