Skip to main content

To The Broken Ones

Today you yelled, said words you never thought would pass your lips.
Yesterday you stopped holding fiercely onto hope. 
You chucked a piece of bread against a wall and watched it crumble to the ground. 
It seemed poetic to you.
The dishes are spilling beyond the boundaries of the sink and the counter is shining back to you with water as its mockery.
Some moms have weekly meal lists and you have a frozen pizza.
Your Pinterest boards hold thousands of pins. And they stay there, pinned, convincing you that you are worthless.
Your friends post pictures of being dressed up for a date night while you  hope for just one day without screaming at each other. 
Your children have watched you come unglued. They have heard words that rightly shame your soul. 

You are battered and bruised and your soul is begging you with every whisper to retreat into hiding. Hide this shame. Hide this ugliness. Hide the words spoken. Hide the terror of your heart. Hide the fears of attachment disorders. Hide the broken marriage. Hide. Hide. Hide. 




You are a broken woman today and can't remember what it was like to be whole. You wish for the sweet escape that sleep brings and then you know the betrayal that dreams bring to you in the night. Tomorrow the sun will rise again and you close your eyes wondering how you will manage to make it one more day.

What happened to the woman arriving at church on Sunday morning in clean clothes with her family smiling sweetly around her? What happened to the wife who greeted her husband as he arrived home with a kiss and words that healed?

Sister, Friend, let me tell you a secret. You are right where God wants you, broken, surrounded by the rubble of your dreams. Now, now, now is the time to speak. Tell us the truth of your brokenness. Tell us the reality you are facing. Tell us of the failures. Tell us how you cannot imagine walking one more day of this road. Because when you do we will see Christ. Your brokenness is the unveiling of the Christ within you. He has torn down every pillar that made you look righteous and all we will see now is Him. 

Your children will watch a broken mom clinging to a Savior who extends mercy. And they will wish for the breath of that same, merciful Spirit in their own hearts. They will learn that Christ is loving to the broken and the beautiful. They will stop performing for a demanding God and start rejoicing in His presence. As your acts of service turn into yearnings of a heart full of desperate and humbled love they will learn to stop checking a list and start being a broken, grace filled child of God. 

God is the Great Physician, the Redeemer of souls, the Lover of hearts. He never wanted your sacrifice of perfection. You were so much more to Him then your acts of service. He wanted you, all of you, all of the hidden broken pieces you didn't want to admit existed. He wanted your beauty, your ugliness, your hidden agendas, your whole heart. You hid behind all the pretty parts of you and He waited. This day, this one where you are so broken that you want to hide in shame, this one where you are sure He would never want any part of you, this is the day that He is rejoicing that you are bringing your whole self to Him. This broken person has been the one He has loved all along. He has waited all this time for you. 

It is not just okay to be broken. 
It is right. 
Bring it to Him. 
Lay yourself bare before the holy One. 
The end of you is the beginning of Him.
Every single day He is turning broken into beautiful.
I cannot wait to see what He makes of you. 


Tell us your story today. Together we will see His beauty. And I can promise you that it is far more beautiful than everything that you were before the day that you were broken. 


Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 14, 2015 at 1:16 PM

    Katie, I don't know if you know much of my story with my youngest daughter, but it has been a truly rocky road. This is some soul-searing truth right here, and I needed to read it. It's so easy to sit back and wish things were different while I'm hip-deep in screaming fits, far harder to accept where God has put me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KatieSeptember 21, 2015 at 8:10 AM

      I'm catching up on your story now. Hang in there momma. Something beautiful is being made.

      Delete
  2. quilt'n-mamaNovember 4, 2015 at 11:29 AM

    I came across this today and oh how my heart needed it!
    Thank you, thank you thank you!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This I Know

Where can I possibly begin to explain to you what this year has been? The last post on my blog was many, many months ago. I share my personal stories on my blog and somehow they resonate with people. But I entered a year where I wasn't sure what could be shared, what couldn't, who would be hurt, what legal action could come against me, or what was even true. It hasn't been just one area of life, it has been all areas of life. We moved to a new town. Kids entered new schools. We attended a new church. It was an intense year politically. (perhaps the understatement of the century) My mind and heart have been spinning, trying to find where to land.  I learned first hand about discrimination. I watched as churches denied my children access to VBS because they were blind. I watched workers take the canes away from my daughters because it wasn't safe for the other kids. I lifted a limp, severely overheated daughter into my arms and removed her from a school building ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Seeking Hope

In the last year I trained myself well to focus on the task before me and not worry about tomorrow. However, somehow in the middle of this self training, in the forcing of tunneled vision I lost sight of one of the most basic things. In my quest to make it through the day I left behind the inspiration, the sustaining of hope that breathes life into tired hearts. It hurt too much to hope. The fear of having a child die is overwhelming. And so, I was just surviving and for a time survival mode is absolutely necessary. I needed to just finish one more piece of paperwork. I needed to call one more government official and not be emotional. I needed the fortitude that survival skills bring. Once in China, faced with more trauma then I even allow myself to remember right now, I needed to survive. I needed to bathe my daughter, make rice cereal, walk to the store, avoid the human trafficking rings, block out the rude stares, wipe a runny nose. I needed to survive on little to no sleep. My he...
1 comment
Read more

The End of a Generation

The last month we had a lot to do. The month ended with my grandfather's Arlington Cemetery burial and family reunion. I wasn't able to be there for his funeral and this was my chance to honor the hero that he was. Ellie was strapped to me as we placed a rose at the resting place of her namesake and I wish for everything that both of those amazing people had been here to meet my darling girls. They would have wondered what I was thinking and probably told me that this was too much for me. I'm pretty positive my spunky grandmother would have dropped a few "Good God's!!"  But they would have choked up when my girls slipped their hands into their life-worn, aged hands. They would have loved them well. Shirley Jean Moschell Penny would have loved sitting with my Ellie and drawing her out of her traumatized shell. She would not have minded Ellie's rough, too loud voice. She would have told her to keep talking, keep yelling until she got it right. And she woul...
1 comment
Read more