Beauty in Brokenness

Over the five years of my daughter’s life, we have amassed an obscene number of toys. Her playroom often looks like three or four kids should live with us (seriously!). Toys of all shapes, sizes and forms. And she loves all of them. At times, a toy will become broken, and no matter how broken it is, she will insist on keeping it. I admit that I often try to find ways to throw it away when she isn’t looking. But the funny thing is to her, even broken, the toy still has a value.

I thank God that his heart is more like my daughters than mine.

Even broken, we are still valuable to him.

In fact, our brokenness is exactly what he is looking for. Not because he delights in our suffering, but because it is He alone who holds the power to mend us, and through our suffering and experiences we are made stronger in him.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” – Psalm 34:18

God uses our brokenness to remind us of his divine power. If we never needed “fixing” than we would easily take for granted his ability to make us whole. Our issues and moments of despair are open doors that allow God to flow into our lives. Yet, human nature looks at our situation, our depression, our discontent, our sins and our suffering and tells us that there is no place for God in all of our mess.

But God doesn’t want or need to be “in” our mess. God surrounds our mess. He places his loving arms around our desperate situations and squeezes it and applies heavenly pressure on it and on us until a sparkly new diamond emerges from what was our coal-like lump of tears, pain, and sorrow.

Even broken, my love, you still have value! God sees and knows your value. It was determined by him. He knew every crack, every flaw, every tear and every rip before it even came to pass. Your mistakes and your hardships were known to him even while you were in the womb, so there is no broken place that can take you too far out of the grace of God. Our only job is to come. To push through our feelings of inadequacy and come to him to find our hope and our value.

“This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.” – Hebrews 4:15-16