Out of Broken. That’s the title of my website. It’s not catchy or trendy or fun. In fact, I delayed writing for about 7 months because I dreaded this title. No one wants to read words coming from a title that sounds so dreary.
The reality is that out of being broken, crushed, completely dead inside, did I finally take the Hand that was there the whole time waiting for me to grab on to it to pull me out of the dark pit.
Revelation 22:17b says, “And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”
God is standing here, offering us a cup of water, to quench our thirsty souls, the kind of water that never runs dry, the kind that eternally quenches. Before we can accept this free gift though, we have to recognize that we really do thirst for it.
Oftentimes our thirst is disguised as ambition. Ambition to find ourselves, a fulfilling career, a spouse that we can say, “you complete me” to, all the adventures, the travels, the 4-hour-work-week freedom, and this search which we give ourselves completely to, actually deadens our desire for the Water of Life that truly quenches, that which we reject because we feel will most certainly keep us from our desired happiness and life goals. But as anyone who’s ever gone after those things knows, in and of themselves, we are still left wanting.
My life verse, that which a version of I had tattooed on my forearm in Latin, Matthew 10:39 says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake, will find it.” I’ve never seen this verse in brush script trending on Instagram and I rarely hear it preached on.
But that’s the truth of the gospel. Jesus laid down His life for us and He rose again, defeating death and sin, so that we can live in open communion with God, so that we can be saved. In death He found life. Life everlasting for us.
Often times when we feel pain, difficult circumstances, difficult people, we close our fists to it. We rise up against it. We fight it. We mourn it. We reject it.
Ann Voskamp says, “Allow Christ in you to give away the gift of Himself right through your brokenness. God gives God so we can be the givers. The gift-ers.”
Even when it doesn’t look like gifts or grace we accept the gifts given and the grace bestowed. Sometimes the gifts are grief, an illness, even anxiety that debilitates. Sometimes the gift feels like destruction, it breaks us. But when we can hold our hand open to the good and the bad, trusting that all is from the hand of God, that it’s all the Water of Life, and pour it all back out to help the hurting, this is when we find Life, the Abundant Life, the Joy Life.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
