Broken

In our society, being broken is a negative thing. If you are broken, there is a pill for you to take, a therapist for you to see, there are support groups for you to attend… being broken means that you need something or someone to help you figure out how to be fixed again. How to repair everything in your life, how to pick up the pieces and glue yourself back together…

So why do I find myself wanting to BE broken?

Every now and then I get a song stuck in my head… you know the feeling, it loops around, you sing the same couple of lines over and over again and nothing that you do distracts you from this repetitive chorus in your head. This is what I find myself doing with this phrase “I want to be broken”. I have no idea where this phrase came from…

I feel very odd writing this post, as if it’s something to be ashamed of, something to tiptoe around and avoid, but I still feel like I need to write it. I’ll be honest that I have no idea where this is going. It’s just that the world has coaxed me into being so cautious and cynical even though I try to fight against it… I want to come up with reasons why the homeless shouldn’t be asking for my money, why the welfare system should be run differently, why the murderers should be behind bars for the rest of their lives, and why the drug addicts should be left to their own devices. I argue that they all made choices. They all got themselves into the situations that they are in… so why should anyone else pay for their mistakes?

I get in this rut of worrying about all of the injustices in the world. I think about all of the people that are taking advantage, of all of the people that are just not even TRYING to be good… I get overwhelmed by it. I get so caught up in the emotion of how wrong it is and how unfair the world is and how there are so many broken people that need to get it together and do the RIGHT things…

And then I remember all of the poor choices I have made in my life… anyone who knows me well knows that there have been MANY, and even those who know me very well likely don’t know all of them. I joke about my bad luck and how if something is going to go wrong, it’s going to happen to ME… but if I’m being honest, I’ve come out of some pretty tough situations with definite consequences, but nothing too devastating. I’ve been fortunate that the poor choices I have made haven’t landed me in more trouble than they have. Now this is where I need to point out that even if this hadn’t been the case, it isn’t my place to say who deserves what. I am not BETTER than anyone else and that is something that as much as I try to fight it, I forget. Not everyone has had the advantages that I have in my life. Regardless, I am not better or worse than anyone else in the world. If Jesus came to the world to SERVE others and not to be served, then why do I feel like I have any place to decide who is worthy of what?

I listened to part of a sermon tonight about God’s calling for people, and the speaker said that we are naturally afraid that someday God is going to ask us to give up something that we love and enjoy to do something that we don’t want to do… I guess I have always had a bit of that fear too. It’s more about being asked to step out of my comfort zone though. In dealing with all of these light consequences for my poor choices I have tended towards carving out a little niche for myself, sitting in a corner in the shadows where I can’t get too uncomfortable or be noticed too easily. For the past few years of my life I have thrived on being invisible. For a girl who is “freakishly tall” as one of my best friends calls me and has red hair, this is quite a feat but I’ve managed it pretty well… but I am so sick of worrying about what other people think of me and deciding what to think of others…

I’ve been feeling recently the desire to be humbled, to be reminded how small I really am and how unimportant my problems are. I want to be in awe of God’s grace. I want to meet people who have done so much more than I have in their faith with so much less in their favor. I want to know that I have been taking for granted every good thing in my life so that I can work towards not doing it anymore. I want that fresh new perspective—that awestruck wonder of “how could I NOT see this before?!” I want to take myself out of the center of my life and put God’s will there instead. I don’t want to hide in the shadows anymore, I want to stand in the glory of God’s light… and I want people to see that light shining in ME…

I want to be broken in such a way that God can put me back together with less selfishness and desire for the things that I think I need and instead replace it with an insatiable thirst for His will for me.

I want to be broken.

John 15: 1-17

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.