One of my friends posted this quote on Facebook, and it really struck a cord with me. Part of that is because it speaks so strongly to the last few years of my own life.
Heart break comes in many forms. It doesn’t have to be traditional lost love. Lots of things can cause such heart break that in some ways hurt even more.
Such heartbreak can come in the loss a dream, the loss of what you thought your life might look like. The realization that reality is so much different. The realization that the dream must be let go.
Heartbreak can also come when you discover the strength that you once held dear is actually quite fragile after all. When perfection cracks and what’s left is just a shell of what you thought you were, what other people were meant to see.
And to add insult to injury, when the heartbreak can no longer be hidden and spills over into a lot of areas of life. When it has to be named and claimed and weakness has to be owned like a tarnished crown with missing jewels, that’s another heartbreak.
Oh so many things…broken, bruised, battered, beaten…all the things I never want to be.
But on the other side, I can look back and be grateful for all the imperfect times. I can be grateful for the cracks. I can be grateful for the places where the fake outer exterior let me down. I can be grateful for the brokenness.
On the other side of brokenness, I found grace in all it’s forms. I found grace from a God who was not surprised because He knew of my imperfections all along and was only waiting for me to see them. I found grace from friends who did not need me to be anything but who I truly am. These people who love me regardless of my flaws and perhaps love me better because of them.
Mostly I found grace to extend to myself. Grace to know that healing takes time. Grace to know that sometimes we step backward before we continue on. Grace to see that even when others don’t know or recognize, I have come ever so far and yet have ever so far to go. Grace to know I must keep pace with the One who extends me grace in all the things.
My rock bottom is different than yours perhaps. My rock bottom doesn’t involve chemical pleasures or other people. Yet my rock bottom is no better than all of that. It’s still a place where in my brokenness and my need, the God who created me met me and said yes, I’ve known you all along. I’ve just been waiting for you to realize you still need me, perhaps now more than ever.
And so I don’t regret the journey I’ve been on to get to this place. I look at the path, the challenges, the mistakes, the failings, with gratefulness because in them I found myself and I found the God who loved me then and loves me still.
Had I never been broken, I would never have changed. Had I never had loneliness, I would never have had need of people. Had I not seen my weakness, I would never need His strength. Had my imperfections not been so public, I would never have embraced them and embraced the path to healing.
The race is not run. The path is not complete. The journey continues on. But here, I am ever so grateful for a God willing to break my heart in order to save my soul. I am thankful for the absolute and complete kindness of God when my circumstances seem unkind. In this journey, there will be hard times and good times. May I always remain breakable when I need to be so my soul can find rest in the One who saves me and puts the pieces back together again.
This Season.... 