Broken Me.
I recently started reading a book entitled Blue Like Jazz. The book is a collection of nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality; however, it ultimately aims to point readers to Jesus. When I started reading the book, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. And, as I began to read, I was pleasantly greeted with facts about the brokenness of my life. Pleasant, because it affirmed that I am not the only one who deals with mind battles, yet a little bit grim to have all of my brokenness exploited. The author, Donald Miller, said something that really struck a chord in me: “I didn’t want to live in a broken world with a broken me.”To me, the acceptance of brokenness is one of the hardest things about being a Christian. And, I think it’s so difficult because most of the time our brokenness is concealed inside of our flesh, the world doesn’t always get a chance to see it. We are the only ones who can really, deeply comprehend the extent of our brokenness. Other people don’t get a chance to view the thoughts that stream through our heads. Most of the time, I think we can all agree that we are so happy our thoughts are concealed within us, but occasionally we wish people could just understand what the heck is going on inside of us! I’m in a valley right now, but life is so good! I just got out of school for summer break, my best friend is home from college, and each day has been filled with rest and fun times with friends and family! My valley is on the inside and nobody can really see that I’m in it. Once I got on summer break, I suddenly had all of this free time, to which my brain decided my head needed to be filled with doubts and insecurities. Each day, I sit trying to ignore the traffic jam in my head, hoping that it will eventually alleviate itself. I try combating the ugly thoughts with prettier ones, but the mess only seems to get larger as time progresses. Yesterday, however, I realized that I was using “broken me” to try and fix “broken me.” I put the burden on myself to solve an incomprehensible problem instead of turning to my incomprehensible Savior. So, before I closed my eyes to sleep, I looked up to the night sky and prayed that God would help take away my mind battle and fill my head with lovelier things. Personally, night is a very sensitive time for me mentally. A lot of times my dreams expose my deepest fears and doubts. But, last night, unlike most recently, my dreams were clean from my brokenness. All I had to do was turn to Christ, rather than myself. You would think I would have thought of that, right?!“There I will give her vineyards back to her and make the Valley of Achor (trouble) into a gateway of hope" (Hosea 2:15).In this verse, Hosea is saying that the Lord can take our troubles and produce for us a door of hope. We cannot do that ourselves! We have to look to Him, the God of Hope, if we want to see the light at the end of our tunnels.I’m not sure what valley you are in today. Maybe your valley is in your mind, or maybe it’s in your home, or your relationship, but wherever your valley is know that God is only a prayer away. It doesn’t matter how broken we are because he is perfect. The only way we can find resolution from our deepest pains is to turn from our “broken me” to a God who knows no imperfection or limitation. There is hope in the valley, but we aren’t going to find it if we keep looking down in ourselves, we have to look up to Him.words by Samantha Burton and photo by Cate Willis