BROKEN

I asked God to speak to me about brokenness, about my brokenness, and He did.

There was caution about believing lies about brokenness. Lies about my brokenness and my family's brokenness.

We were not broken when Ethan was injured. We were broken long before.

We are not alone. All are broken. All families are broken. Their brokenness may be hidden like faults and cracks buried in the earth. But the brokenness is there.

Just because we don't see our healing, our putting back together again, doesn't mean that it hasn't happened.

As believers, we live broken lives and healed lives at the same time.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that God has put everything under the feet of Jesus. It's done. All my brokenness, all your brokenness, and all the things that caused it, are under His feet. However, the same writer, in the same verse, tells us that now we do not yet see all things put under Him.*

I've asked God to use my life. To let it make a difference.

But, I've also asked Him how.

How is He going to use me?

I don't even know where all my pieces are. It feels like more pieces of me are falling apart every day.

I don't like the messiness.

I don't like the brokenness.

I like things simple.

Things in the right place.

Pieces put together.

God reminded me that . . .

Gadgets and machines have to be taken apart to be fixed.

Rooms must be emptied to be thoroughly cleaned.

Bread has to be broken to be shared.

Is that what brokenness is about?

Being used? Making a difference?

Does that make our brokenness a good thing?

And, then I thought about Jesus on the cross.

Broken.

His was a chosen brokenness.

A brokenness He embraced.

Mine is not.

Maybe it should be.

********************************************************************************
I debated about posting these thoughts.

I knew they could easily be misunderstood.

(Heaven knows, Cheri hates to be misunderstood.)

My heart was leaning towards sharing them when I saw the broken sand dollar on the beach yesterday, but I still wasn't sure.

But then I read today's daily e-mail devotional from the Henri Nouwen Society.

And, my broken self smiled.


***************************************************************************

BEING GIVEN
Henri Nouwen - July 16

"Jesus is given to the world. He was chosen, blessed, and broken to be given. Jesus' life and death were a life and death for others. The Beloved Son of God, chosen from all eternity, was broken on the cross so that this one life could multiply and become food for people of all places and all times.

As God's beloved children we have to believe that our little lives, when lived as God's chosen and blessed children, are broken to be given to others, we too have to become bread for the world. When we live our brokenness under the blessing, our lives will continue to bear fruit from generation to generation. That is the story of the saints - they died but they continue to be alive in the hearts of those who live after them. And, it can be our story, too."


*Hebrews 2:8