The Beauty in Brokenness

The Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

If we had a coin for every time we felt broken and discouraged…okay, we wouldn’t be rich but we would have very many coins. It isn’t uncommon for people to feel like they don’t have a handle on the situation that they are facing. I believe it stems from the fact that as human beings, we love to be in control of situations. Even for those who may not, it isn’t because they don’t want to be in control, but because they have trained themselves to understand that it may not always be possible, and that’s okay. But for the vast majority of us, the desire to be in control of the situation often gets us into more trouble than we can manage on our own.

Apart from our own role in our brokenness, there is also the role that other people play in the process. People simply being people, all imperfections implied, can either knowingly or unknowingly put us in circumstances that leave us hurt and disappointed. Unfortunately, unlike when the cause of the discouragement is internal since it is self-inflicted, when it comes to circumstances created by other people’s actions, such as the betrayal from a loved one, we lose all form of control over the event that brings the hurt. For example, when in a toxic relationship, we may not be able to control the other person’s actions of deceit, neglect and abuse which thrusts us head first into the sea of discouragement.

But what if we didn’t have to wallow in this kind of misery? What if there was a way out? Well, there is. Someone said “the only thing you can control is how to react to things out of your control.” Now think about that for a minute. That basically means that life will happen just like it usually does and while we may be responsible for some of the stuff that goes wrong, we sometimes aren’t. However, what stands is how we choose to move on from that point of trouble and ‘making lemonade from the lemons’ (PS: I acknowledge how cliché that phrase is. Lol!) It really is possible to take something that would have killed you and turn it into something that may potentially be the best thing that could have happened to you. That’s what Genesis 50:20 means when it says “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.” (NLT) Our point of control may be to avoid the situation but when it becomes unavoidable (which is usually the point where we lack control), the next point of control is our reaction.

I strongly believe that one of the most important things we can do with discouragement is bring it before God because His level of understanding of our situation supersedes even our own emotions and thoughts in that moments. He knows both the source and implications of the problem and so it is only He who can turn that mess into something beautiful. I don’t say this theoretically. I have lived it. Seeing God deliver me from shame, guilt, pain, betrayal, toxic relationships, low self-esteem and so many more things, and bring me to a place of joy, peace, wholeness, growth and love is beyond anything I could have done on my own.

My version of talking control of how I react was just to offer my mess up to God and just be plain and bare, not withholding anything, because I had tried it on my own and I only made it worse. It’s like when a child writes on the wall they realize that they made a mistake and so try to erase it only to make a smudge which is even worse than the lines they drew.

That was my life in a nutshell for a long time. But the moment I broke down and allowed God to get into my broken space, I began to see change. It wasn’t instant but slowly, I began to feel free and loved, valuable and special. I started to see that my mistakes could be make beautiful just like the Japanese art of Kintsugi where broken pottery is reassembled and repaired to make a beautiful piece of art.

That’s how God takes what’s broken and maybe even worthy of being thrown out, and He puts it back together making it lovely, even more lovely than its original form. So what discouragement are you dealing with today? What brokenness do you need to stop trying to fix and just offer it up to God to help you work through? Allow that which the enemy intended to break you to be the point of your greatest victory