Broken and Whole

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. — Isaiah 40:29 NIV

Embrace my brokenness? Find strength in my weakness? Allow God to redeem my pain? As my interior world was tethering at the seams, I didn’t want to go there! But it was exactly within those questions where I met God at a deeper, more grace-filled place. I knew I was broken and in need of God, and amidst that more authentic geography of the soul, I was certain I was also beloved in his eyes. Because of that incredible truth — I am dearly loved by God — I could be set free from the bondage of my brokenness. I am deeply sinful and in need of God. Wholeness was now on the horizon.

The primary sources of my brokenness didn’t come from my vocation as a minister of the gospel or the work I was called to fulfill. Instead, it arose from a raw season of my life when coping mechanisms that had worked before were no longer fruitful. I was now confronting relationship challenges I thought I could fix, but instead, I had to acknowledge that, in reality, they were unrepairable. The wounds of my distant past had reared their ugly heads, and I was now willing to seek professional help. I enlisted the care of an excellent therapist. I clung to the promise that the truth would set me free — and that’s what occurred. 

It took my brokenness to get me out of the fog of leading and serving and living from a perceived place of vigor and vitality. What I had seen in others who I emulated as strong leaders was in fact more of a façade. They too had bruises left unattended. They too had sin patterns that eventually eked out. They too needed God to attend to their brokenness and restore them to his original intention. They too had pretense and posturing which only God could heal and redeem. I simply joined their ranks. 

What I discovered in that season of my life was an unlocking of biblical truth which led me down a pathway of an emancipated soul. After discovering my brokenness and acknowledging its reality in my heart, mind and soul, I was gently invited to release it into the hands of a loving God who was more than willing to carry it for me. And more importantly, God was desirous of redeeming all of it for his glory. When that realization settled into the deepest crevices of my worn and weary soul, new life began to emerge. Today, I’m a completely different person, still in the process of redemption but experiencing the joy of wholeness in Christ like never before. 

What are you holding on to today that is the true and broken you? Are you crippled by the fear of admitting your brokenness and the brokenness that others have inflicted upon you? Let me be one to encourage you toward owning, naming and then releasing this brokenness into the hands of a very loving heavenly Father. God himself is there to hold and comfort you no matter what you carry today. Let his love enfold you and heal you from the inside out — that’s exactly what God is all about!