Take My Broken Pieces, Lord Jesus

My life was a pile of broken pieces when I was still a child. Years of harshness, abuse, and manipulation left me so confused I didn't even know which end was up. Every fiber of my being throbbed with pain and hopelessness. I ached for comfort and yet felt so wretchedly unworthy of anything good.

* I am feeble and severely broken; I groan because of the turmoil of my heart. Psalm 38:8.

When I came to the end of myself, my precious Savior came to me and brought me to Himself. I gave my life into His hands. Dear Jesus! He came to give me forgiveness, hope, and healing I never dreamed was possible. I had nothing to give to Him except broken pieces. But He doesn't need us to be whole or well. When He comes to us repeatedly, knocking on our hearts, asking to be let in, He doesn't need anything from us but our sinfulness, brokenness, and neediness.

* Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Luke 5:31-32.

He put His everlasting arms around me, and gave me the strength to take one step at a time. It was a rocky steep road ahead. I was as helpless as a newborn baby. I had so much to learn. I needed to learn to smile again. I needed to learn to trust. I had to learn to hope again. I needed to learn to feel joy. And piece by piece Jesus poured these things into my broken life.

* The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18.

As Jesus healed me more and more it was easy to think that I had been through my time of brokenness and that life would just get better from there on out. I could feel that my heart was deeply scarred, but I had hope again and had deeply cherished dreams for the future when I was a teenager. I was leaving pain and brokenness behind. I didn't think my dreams were anything too high to ask for. I just wanted a normal peaceful life with a husband and children. I wanted love, security, and stability. I wanted to be whole and happy and be able to spread lots of love, and sunshine, and comfort to anyone who needed it.

I was unprepared for the fact that I would scarcely reach adulthood before I would be more broken than ever. I was fragile to begin with but after a year of shock after shock and exquisite pain I was completely shattered emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically. Almost everything that I thought was stable and secure broke up and disappeared. Once again, facing life each day felt like trying to run a race with two smashed and broken legs. I simply can not express the horror of that time. Not only were outward circumstances heartbreaking and terrifying beyond words, but my own broken heart and mind were appalling to me. I lost all ability to cope with the smallest things of life without an overwhelming hysteria running through me constantly. Physically, I was a walking skeleton; so thin and weak and exhausted that it didn't seem that life would even be able to hang on much longer. I felt that I was hopelessly broken forever.

I am afraid that many times in the depths of my agony I doubted God's very existence. But there were times as I paced the floor alone in a frantic anguish, that I would whisper His name in a desperate cry from the depths of my heart. Much of the time I was too exhausted to actually pray, but Jesus did not need any explanations from me. All He needed was for me to place my broken pieces into His healing hands once more.

When those broken pieces were placed in His hands, I could scarcely believe His healing power. In His dear hands those broken pieces that had me recoiling in horror have become something I am thankful for, because He has taught me so much through them. How He could take a life so shattered and broken and pour in such comfort, joy, peace, and hope is something I can not begin to understand. But I don't have to understand it. I have experienced it, and I will never forget as long as I live.

* He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3.

I no longer have any ideas of going through life without anymore broken pieces. I have seen enough to know that most all of us face our own shattered dreams, tragedies, and broken hearts time and time again throughout life. My life is no exception. But I know now where to take the broken pieces. And I also know now that our own brokenness does not have to keep us from spreading lots of love, sunshine, and comfort to others.

My Savior's life and has been broken and He has scars, but the comfort and healing that He gives to us never ends. He takes our ashes and gives us beauty instead. He takes our sorrow gives us the oil of joy. He takes our spirit of heaviness and gives us garments of praise. (Isaiah 61:3) And when He pours His comfort into our hearts, it is not just to keep for ourselves, but also to give out to others.

* Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Cor. 1:3-4.

That is an immense comfort to me, because ever since I was a little girl I've ached to comfort people who were suffering. But I didn't understand then that it is often deeply broken lives that Jesus uses to bring the most comfort to others.

When God has sent me a great wealth of His comfort and care through others, it has been sent through precious souls who have been deeply broken by the trials and tragedies of life. It is not the lives with unclouded sunshine that have touched me to the depths of my soul. It is not the hearts that have never been broken that have brought so much peace and comfort to my heart. I know now that Jesus often allows us to be broken so that we are better able to comfort someone else. And I know that we can never have any brokenness that He can not turn into blessing.

* For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. 2 Cor. 1:5.

* Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. 2 Cor. 1:6.

That knowledge allows me to place my broken pieces in His nail-scarred hands with peace and confidence, even through scalding heart-wrung tears.

Lord Jesus, I give you my scars and my tears. I give you my heart which has been broken again and again. I give you my longings and dreams which have never been fulfilled. Dear Jesus, I know that only in your hands can my brokenness be changed into blessing. In my hands, Lord Jesus, it only leads to deepest despair. I thank you, Lord, for being broken for me. I thank you that you loved me so deeply you were willing to suffer such pain and agony so that you could save me and make me whole again. I thank you that I can trust my broken pieces to such unfathomable love. Oh, Lord Jesus, how I do thank and praise you with all of my heart for this!

2006 A Sister In Christ