Perfect Brokenness

They say once you break a bone, the bone grows back stronger and thicker than it was before the break happened. I've also heard it was the Chinese who would mend broken vases with gold, highlighting the story of the vase over the years. Adding value to the brokenness.

Stained glass windows cannot be made unless the glass is broken. And we cannot truly become a part of God's army unless we are first made into wounded warriors.

I think there's something sad to our society, this Western culture, devaluing flaws and imperfections. We point out the brokenness in others as reasons to make ourselves feel better, all the while missing the gold in that brokenness.

I was three years old when I first understood myself as broken and flawed. A few months ago I posted about my traumatic experience of accidentally causing a baby to fall down a flight of stairs and land on the cold, cement basement floor. I blamed myself my entire life for that and I never wanted to know if she survived or not. And that was just the start. I became a survivor over the years, as many more things happened that led to me feeling worthless, unsafe, rejected and struggling to feel worthy of love. It wasn't until last year that my counselor, after a year and a half of therapy, finally said the words "I think we need to treat this as trauma."

It took me quite some time to believe that it was possible that I could be healed. That it was possible that God had more written for me beyond the brokenness, that the brokenness on top of the mending, the healing was something that I could believe for. I really struggled to believe that God would hear me. I really struggled to believe that I wouldn't be stuck forever with my mind in a constant state of cycling through the traumatic memories or thoughts related to those memories. Where triggers were everywhere. "If I can use you in that place where the healing never came, think of how much more I could use you if the healing came." Back in December I started receiving additional EMDR treatment and found God ready to go to work with me to heal my mind. This week was the first time my mind was calm. That I had really, truly begun to find relief and I celebrated it with a night of worship at my church. What incredible, sweet freedom.

The beauty and perfection is not found in the healing but in the brokenness. How could we know love unless we were restricted from that which could harm us? How could we know acceptance unless we had been rejected? How could we know God's power and love unless we recognized our need for it. How could Jesus save us, unless His body was first broken. The truth is, the painful experiences we've had in our lives don't diminish us or the value of our lives. Instead they become gaps in the veil for us to see through into God's holiness. Gaps for His love to be received through into our lives. And just as the Chinese mended those broken vases with gold, God mends our broken lives with His glory. Re-writing and redeeming our brokenness as something to be cherished and valued. The world may not understand this, it may be hard to believe this, but true beauty is not found in that which is not broken. But instead in that which is broken. Because God is capable of taking that which is broken and turning it into a mosaic of beauty.