Beauty In Our Brokenness
I am sitting on my couch in a white tank top that has a huge diet coke stain on it and in a pair of rolled up jeans that fit a lot better when I was going to the gym regularly. I am pretty sure that under anyone’s administration my house would qualify for federal disaster relief funding because it looks a bit like it survived Katrina but I don’t live on the coast of anywhere. I did just spend over an hour at the 24/7 prayer space which has to be experienced to be understood (right Emily?) but I am no closer to having anything figured out.
When I left the prayer space I received a text that the mother of one of my students is very close to death, despite our faithful prayers. Before I went into the prayer space I spent time on the phone with
one of my very favorite people, one whom many consider to be almost perfect. I discovered, not for the first time by the way, that she doesn’t have it all figured out either. We cried together on the phone acknowledging our brokenness. I prayed asking the Lord to help us lean our full weight (In my case that’s considerable. In hers not so much) on Him because we just can’t any more. Such freedom!
Not to decry the benefits of “positive confession” but lately my confession is all about my weakness and Jesus’ strength. The truth is we are all broken and no one has it all figured out. I love this little passage from Matthew 15 sandwiched between the story of the Canaanite woman who is sure that the crumbs from the master’s table will be enough and the feeding of the 4,000. I love it
because … well, just read it.
"29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel."
Oh, to be a part of a company of believers who don’t have to hide their lameness (even in the sense that my teenagers use it) or their blindness or their addictions or their pain but who know how to bring it all to Jesus, a company that knows how to bring others to the feet of Jesus rather than judging them or shaming them. This is our daily bread, His very presence which brings healing and hope, this Jesus who just sits down on a mountain and bids us come without pretense, in our pain and in our brokenness. There is beauty in our brokenness!
Check out this song from Tony Brown and my cousin Patrick Barrett:
