The Lie: "Broken" The Truth: "Healed"

Broken.

Unable to be fixed.

Shattered beyond repair.

This lie is more intertwined than most. It is probably one of the most difficult because if I stack it within the other two lies I have already talked about, it fits within the midst of them.

I am broken because of my bad decisions, the shame of my assault, the burden of who I am. I am broken because of my anxiety and my depression. I am broken because how can I be anything else?

The metaphor of the broken vase and plate are used a lot to display this. They are shattered and when put back together, they are never the same. Whether a small piece is missing or parts couldn't fit exactly back together, when you are broken you are not the same.

There is an interesting dynamic in being broken and being healed by God. God uses broken people throughout the whole Bible. In fact, the only unbroken person in the Bible is Jesus. Though He was physically broken on the cross, He was made perfect in His resurrection.

My brokenness, the thoughts that led me to feel that I was broken beyond any repair started from a young age. I don't sit here with any feelings of blame towards anyone. I don't hold onto any bitterness or anger because of circumstances, situations and/or things that were beyond my own control. In truth, this is the one lie that I have found a way to embrace because without this, I could not be remade. In embracing this, the enemy cannot use it against me. It has no power over me and what the enemy intended for evil, God has deeply used for good (paraphrased from Genesis 50:20).

I have referenced this book in past blogs, "It's Not Supposed to be This Way" by Lysa Terkeurst. This book deeply changed my thought process on being broken.

Being broken is not fun. It is by far one of the most heart wrenching processes I have been through and it is one that I have been through more than once and potentially will walk through again. But it is in the brokenness that He can do some of His greatest work.

I use the word "healed" as the truth because every broken season has lead to a healing from whatever lie or sin I found myself lost in. In all of this, I have still made the same mistake or caught myself falling into that same brokenness, but God brings my failure to light and instead of dwelling in that place, I am reminded of what it means.

In the book, Lysa reminds us that we came from the dust. What is most interesting in this aspect is when she also says that sometimes the only way He can recreate us to be more into His image is by returning us to the place where we were created from - dust.

Not dealing with a lot of things from my past taught my body to live in a place of trauma/fight or flight/get them before they get me...whatever you want to call it.

We live in a fallen world and cannot expect the people around us to be perfect. It is not reasonable. In this pain comes mental, emotional, physical, spiritual abuse....I have had people hurt me using all the categories, some just one or two, some three...to sit here and speak on all of those things is splitting hairs for me at this point in my life. There is no person who has hurt me who has not been forgiven and if possible restoration made. I choose to heal the brokenness in my life this way. One because I desire it to be that way and two, because it is what I feel He has always called me to.

Aaron and I spent many years hurting and breaking each other. The hardest part in this is that this is my person. The one I chose to be held to forever, the one that has helped me and pushed me more than any other person. I don't understand why we hurt the people we love the most when we are fighting for our own healing. We created a vicious cycle in our marriage for a long time. It felt like the brokenness we caused in each other was just because we brought a lot of brokenness into our relationship. Past hurts that go without healing lead to future devastations.

But God....

He knew what He was doing when He brought us to Him and He knew what He was doing every time I found myself in a season of being shattered. Whether it was of my own undoing or the consequences of another, I can look back and see His hand in the healing....even before I knew Him, He was doing things that I know that I will not see or understand on this side of heaven.

Some of the broken pieces of my life are deeply painful and have created deep crevices in who I am, but they have been filled with a love and a learning that have created me to be the person that is sitting in front of this computer.

Brokenness is not always a choice, but healing always is. We can choose to live in a place of healing because He is the ultimate Healer. There is nothing that God hasn't already rectified in His death on the cross. Choosing to live in our brokenness doesn't bring honor and glory to Him. I have learned that the hard way.

For a long time I chose to wallow in my brokenness because it was a mess I created and I felt like what I had broken, the relationships that were devastated, that is was too much to be repaired. Yet God is faithful and in the gentleness of His live began to show me the error of my ways and began to do an amazing work of healing and restoration. I will never forget the night I laid at an altar and spent hours repenting and praying. It may have taken two years to see the result of that repentance and acceptance of my own "breaking of the plates" but He fit the pieces back together with His love and grace.

Just like He healed the blind man by spitting in the dust and rubbing it on his eyes, he can use dust to heal any situation in your life. Our identity is not found in the brokenness of our lives, but in Him.

My sexual assault does not define me. The physical, mental and emotional abuse that I endured does not define me. Teenagers teasing and hateful lies and cruel words do not define me. The negative self talk in the mirror and the mental shattering I have done to myself by hating who I was, does not define me.

Jesus calls me clean. Jesus claims the victory over all physical, mental and emotional abuse. Jesus shows me that I am not the value of someone's negative words, but I am found precious in His site. Jesus stands before me and takes my own negative words and self hatred and tells me I am chosen, I am who He says I am.

As I sit here, still an imperfect person, I know that I am still in the process of being healed from my brokenness and though I pray that I do not have another deeply painful season of being shattered into dust, I also have seen what He has done in those seasons and if I have to endure to be more created into His image and to who He wants me to be, then to dust I shall be made and by His hands I shall be recreated.

When we take all our broken pieces into His house and allow the potter to take the pieces and mold the clay, what comes from the hands of our Father may not always be what was expected, but it always what He had planned. We serve a living God. A God of resurrection. A God of light. A God who breaks chains. A God who remakes. A God who revives the broken and puts them back into His glorious light.