Brokenness is such a familiar word to many of us. Maybe you’ve been broken because of your family, friends, people around, unmet expectations in life, depressing situations, and the like. The world even makes us broken in so many ways. Sometimes it makes us feel bitter and resentful.
Perhaps some people have become callous with the idea of brokenness because they have been there for many times. Their hearts turned cold and hard-hearted. Buried between letting go and holding on are the scars that are left unnoticed. Those scars remind how strong they were in fighting their battles. Though, they are ugly marks of the past, they are also a beautiful reminder that the wounds that hurt and pained them healed, finally.
Brokennes is something that’s common to me these days. Let me start on the day I was diagnosed with having tumors in my thyroid. That day, my life was shattered. For the next couple of months, my mind was filled with the thought of death. I told God that I was not ready yet. And that I still have a lot of dreams and plans to accomplish.
While being so broken, it made me ponder on these questions:
Why did God allow this sickness to strike me?
Why now and not when I get older? It could have been better if I am older…I’m just 29.
Why can He not heal me now?
I had doubts. I had so much fears. I was hurt. I was so broken that every now and then I needed to hide the tears that voluntarily rolled down my eyes. I just could not believe how my life was turned upside down in an instant.
Sleep almost left me and all I could do was to write in my journal and talk to God. It was the toughest time of my life. (And tough days become my normal.)
I hated it at first and begged God to lead me back to where I was. Later on, it came to my senses that God has a different plan for me. So I stopped resisting and chose to surrender.
As days pass by, those questions that I asked Him slowly unfolding as I choose to walk by faith and die to myself daily so I can obey Him.
In my brokenness, the Lord showed me to see things beyond it. He allowed me to experience deep pain so I could learn to be compassionate and weak. I was so strong and that’s the reason why He couldn’t use me according to His purpose. I felt like I was the Psalmist who said,
“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”
My brokennes paved its way for me to see that I need Him more than anyone and anything, and that I could not do anything without Him. It helped me get closer to Him as I wasn’t sure what tomorrow may bring.
We all have different stories of brokenness. My story might even pale in comparison to many who had gone through so much pain and brokenness. Nevertheless, I want to tell my story and how God has been so faithful all through out this journey.
At first, I hated talking about my situation. I didn’t want people to pity me. I didn’t want them to make me feel that I am incapable and useless now that I could not do more. I didn’t want them to see me crying. But I remember someone who said that one of the greatest ways to share Christ is through our life story. And this is what God has impressed on my heart. I am still alive to tell the story of His love. His faithfulness. His mercy and grace. His miracles. His healing. His Salvation.
Now I believe that we can still sing praises to the Lord despite our situation. We can still get up and move on inspite of difficulties and trials. We can look beyond our pain and brokenness and see that ahead of us is the reward of blessings.
There’s no doubt that God uses our deepest trials to mold us to be better Christians and better vessels whom He can use for His glory. In the end, we will understand that all things work together for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). And even though we will never understand why, we still need to trust His plans because He is our God and He is the one who controls everything for our own good. When Joseph was sold by his brothers, accused and imprisoned, and forgotten by the person whom he helped, he might not understand what’s going on. I believe that with all those things that had happened to him, he felt pain and brokenness, too. Yet he trusted his God. That gave him the victory that no one could ever imagine.
In the same way, we are to trust the plan of our Father. When it’s hard for us to do that, let’s look back and examine the great people in the Bible. It’s always God who made them succeed in many ways.
Our brokennes and pain will not be wasted and useless if we learn to lay them down at the feet of Jesus. Like how the song goes:
You (God) make beautiful things
You (God) make beautiful things out of the dust
You (God) make beautiful things
You (God) make beautiful things out of us
God alone can make beautiful things out of our rubbish and messy life. He can make beautiful things out of a person like you and me no matter who we are, where we are, and what we are going through.
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