Who's in Control? Pt. 4: Living in Brokenness

{This one’s on the long side, sorry!}

The fact is that we like being good, complete, “perfect” people. Showing any sign of weakness or shortcomings is so often seen as a bad thing in our western world. We all know deep down inside that we are living a lie when we try to come across as faultless…but we do it anyway. We compare ourselves to other people and wonder why our life is such a mess compared to how put-together they appear.

But the reality is that every single one of us is just as broken.

We try to hide it from the view of others.

We try to ignore it, stuffing it deep.

But we can’t run away from it.

We know all about it.

We hurt from it.

Broken.

This ties into the sermon because Leeman talked about how we should submit not only to God but also to one another by being authentic with one another. I know I am broken. And if I stop to think about it, I naturally realize that other people are not exempt from failings in their own life.

So why do we try to keep up the façade? Why don’t we – especially within the body of Christ! – be willing to open up with trusted brothers and sisters and share our struggles? The reality is that often it can be beneficial rather than detrimental!

This whole idea really came home to me in April. It was just a tough month for me all the way through. Twelve pages in my diary are filled with a whole lot more questions than the detailed solutions I would love to have as a set pattern follower. And yet I can honestly say that month was one of the best months of my life. Because even though there were hard times, God was so gracious and He never deserted me (naturally!).

One evening a friend texted me asking for prayer. Long story short, I ended up sitting with her wishing I had the words to say to make everything all better in her life. That experience really opened my eyes to the fact that others have just as much pain bottled up inside of themselves as I have in me. Why do we hold it in? 

Why don’t we release it by admitting our feelings to trusted friends?

That evening, I journaled about the thoughts that flowed from the experience:

“We are all such broken people. We do NOT like admitting it, we do not like sharing it. We expect ourselves and one another to have life all put together. We think we have to be perfect in order to impress one another and often, I think, in an attempt to win God’s favor—to deserve God’s grace.
But that’s not how He works. He works through, not only in spite of, our brokenness. He calls us to come with humble hearts in recognition of our moment by moment, desperate need of Him….
Honesty is NOT easy. It is hard to let those safety walls we have built around us slowly come down.
It’s scary because we fear people’s opinions, we fear being hurt. And when we fear, it does demonstrate a lack of trust.* But it also points to a lack of experiencing true love. Because when people love one another as God loves, there is no torment—there is no fear. There is no uncertainty of how the other person will respond to what we do or say.
And so tonight has been a humbling reminder for me, because it calls me not to forget that I can love {another person through their} pain by God’s love and power alone.”

Over the next couple of days I kept thinking about this topic, and I came back to it in my next journal entry:

“Life here on this earth is hard. It really does just {stink} sometimes. When I’m confronted with how much pain & brokenness there is, especially in other people, it’s hard.
Hard to see why God would allow that—hard to understand why this is part of His plan. And yet it is! And that is the beauty in the midst of the pain; that is the reason we can hope through the hurt.
God is still sovereign, and He does see the end. He knows what we feel. He does not beat us up and leave us lying there broken. Yes, He allows BAD things to happen—but even those things are part of His bigger plan. He uses those experiences to grow us, to bring us into deeper and deeper dependence on Him….”

It’s tough to see beyond the pain of the moment to the amazing goodness which God has in store. And yet I firmly believe that if we would be open and real with one another and learn to accept and love one another, even as the broken beings we are, we could help one another to remember how God sees us. Because God doesn’t see His children as ugly, ruined objects. In His eyes, those who have been accepted into His family are clean and beautiful individuals. Flawed? Yes. Hurting in a world still full of pain? Yes. But that is not their real identity.

That’s what has been rolling around in my heart/head for a while. So friends, if I ask you how you are doing, I really do want to know. If you trust me and are willing to share your struggles, I pray He will overflow His love and grace upon you through me. If I open up and be vulnerable with you about what I am going through, I hope you will accept me as I am and point me back to what truly matters: Christ alone.

Next time I’ll rewind a bit to my Sunday at a friend’s church in Maryland, because the sermon there tied into this same subject {Funny all the various things God can pull from to make a point, isn’t it? :D}

*This had been a theme of my experiences last summer.