Broken (adjective): having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order.
Synonyms: smashed, shattered, fragmented, splintered, crushed, snapped...
Antonyms: whole...
Broken. Notice how there are endless synonyms for broken and only one antonym. When you're broken, you can't think straight, you can't sleep, you can't eat, you don't remember what day it is... nothing seems 'in working order'. You're dead, or if you're not, you might as well be. Broken happens from deep within you and resonates throughout your entire soul and every fragment of your body. You can feel it in your cells. It's an infection that eats you from the inside out. I wouldn't wish broken on even my worst of worst enemies.
Broken.
I am broken. I am fractured. I am damaged. I am no longer in one piece. I am not in working order. I am smashed, shattered, fragmented, splintered, crushed, snapped...
And as I think about it, I was always a little bit broken. I've been less broken lately, but right now, I'm broken to the core. I am shattered and there is no way these pieces are going back together. There are too many of them. Some are even lost and I don't know where to find them.
No, not these, but new ones... new pieces will go back together because God makes all things new. He breaks them and makes them into a new creation that is perfect in every way because He is perfect.
Sometimes we need to be broken. Sometimes we need to take a step back from our lives and live in uncertainty and mud for a little while so that we are forced to kneel at the feet of God. Sometimes God forces us to lean into Him so hard that we can't see anything but Him. And only then are we fully available to Him. Only then can we begin to understand who He has called us to be without distraction.
Yes, I am broken. Very much so. More than I ever thought I could be. And yet I still hear His very clear voice urge me to keep this love that has gone away alive in my heart because it isn't over. It isn't the end. It isn't the final destination. But I am also starting to hear something I haven't heard so clearly before. And it's a sweet voice that says, "I love you and I want the very best for you. Seek me and know me in the innermost parts of you. Seek my love as the glue to put you back together into the woman I've intended you to be. Be still in my presence and drink me in like the sweetest honey. And when you do this, I will fill you up with the earthly love you desire most."
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God, I love you so much. Thank you for blessing me with an earthly love I've never known before, and thank you for speaking in ways we will understand. God, please help me to remember that you have a plan and it is bigger and better than I could ever imagine. Take my broken pieces throw them away so that I can't ever retrieve them. I am not a product of my past and I will not dwell in that anymore. God, knit me into the woman that you have intended me to be who is fearfully and wonderfully made and worthy of being pursued by my earthly love. God, thank you for breaking me and allowing me to mourn for who I have been. Create in me a new and clean heart, God. I love you and I praise you. I ask these things in your sweet and precious name. Amen.
