Broken

(the picture says, "God can heal a broken heart, but he has to have all the pieces.")

today i read a lovely post on brokenness from a newly found and favorited blog, and many of the comments including my own have been floating in my head. brokenness is a recurring theme here on my blog because it's a recurring theme in my life. in past circumstances, i've flailed at the idea of being broken, but really, it's the breaking that's so hard, because once i'm truly IN that place of painful exposure i realize that there was another who broke first. broke as high and wide as the sky and as far from the east to the west. broke so that the earth trembled, and His own blood poured free.

as i wrote in my comment,

"broken is bloody shards of glass and soul, and it is salve to let the poison out.

broken is healing, and broken is Grace.

broken is the forbidden fruit eaten, and a plan of salvation for adam's children.

there is a promise in broken in broken that outshines the hurts, the doubts, the fears, and the self-focus. there is love inside the broken because Love was broken."

it's easy to write about how wonderful and healing brokenness is, but i've also been where it is ugly and raw and i plead to just continue as i am. when a 2 year engagement ended in a day, the healing was long in coming, and i argued with God as my 3-year-old tantrums "no." but i know, now, well after the fact, that if it hadn't been for that kind of heartbreak, i would never have met my husband and been in a whole place to move forward in relationship, nor would i have had the courage to deal with my broken relationship with my parents. i hated every step of the way. sin, too, has a way of cutting deeply, and repentance is itself a kind of being torn, but without the love of our Father, we'd be undone. i am glad for the breaking that draws me close.