God has wrecked everything I have ever known and come to call my life these days. The funny thing is, I look at what this culture would call strange or a disaster and I see something beautiful. I know I am not looking at it with my own eyes and I know I didn’t get to this point because of anything I have done. Something supernatural happened— I was blind, but now I see.
I never knew how precious brokenness really is; yet I think brokenness is something that we are all extremely afraid of as humans. We are afraid of it because it causes us to be vulnerable, unsure and very detached from ourselves. Basically all we knew or held on to is not there anymore; it’s been messed up, torn down and we feel almost naked. We stand there with everything stripped away and we shiver, knowing we cannot do anything and we fear what others will think.
In those fears, you see it’s all about you… it’s what you see, what you feel, what you don’t have, what you wish you could change, what you want, what you think others think…
No wonder it’s so uncomfortable… we weren’t meant to look at it through our eyes.
This is where the past six months of my life come in.
I was broken for so long… I was fighting the fact that God broke me to set me free. I was ignoring the fact that His words breathed over me:
“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.”Isaiah 43:18-19
You see, God doesn’t waste His time. He’s not like us. There are times in our lives when we are living for everything we think He wants and we are really so far that He breaks us… He breaks us to set us free.. to heal us.. to love us.. to change us.. for His glory and for others, so they can be set free.
I was broken and when things are broken, they need to be rebuilt. But my mind never focused on the rebuilt part. My selfishness always saw what was broken. Yet each day, He kept saying softly,
“Chelsie, forget the former things. Don’t you see what I am doing something new? I’ve provided a way for you when there seems no way… a miracle.”
I’ll never forget the day I heard that voice finally. In my brokenness, I felt so alone but it was because God was calling me to just love Him. I was sitting in an airport and it about knocked me over when I heard the still small voice.
I was broken… and it was beautiful. It literally was not only to save my life, but to save others.
When I was broken of myself, I was poured out of all that was selfish.
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
2 Timothy 2:20-22
Our flesh and everything we are apart from God is well, dishonorable. There is nothing good in us—- period. If there is anything that shines of love or something good in us, it is God. For such a long time in my life, I was lead astray. How can people who were born a mess and in sin do anything worth anything? Apart from God it is impossible.
In my brokenness, I saw an invitation.. one to be made into a vessel that was honorable, one that was set apart. But it was not for me to feel better or for people to be like wow look at her… it was for the Master.. for my Lord… for Him to use me.
When I realized my depravity and I surrendered, brokenness became the thing that the Lord used to bring me back to life. For many weeks and months I lived almost dead. I was living dead because I was so wrapped up in all I lost… basically I was so wrapped up in me. Then the Lord basically smacked it down so hard that I knew I couldn’t live the way I was any longer:
not surrendering was affecting people I didn’t even know.. my children, grandchildren, people across the country and the world.. people who were stuck in bondage or going to be and they needed freedom.. they needed Jesus. But my choice of living dead and in bondage was letting them die.
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1
There it was… the Holy Spirit breathed over His words upon me and He opened my heart. When we stand in His presence, we are made new. With a new year on my hands, I realized that this freedom is not for my happiness (although there is extreme and beautiful joy in Christ that surpasses everything this world has to offer) but this freedom was for others who were bound, hopeless and stuck in slavery.
Suddenly I rejoiced in all that was broken. It all made sense, that He was doing a new thing. He broke me so I could no longer live, but He could live in me. He broke me so I could let go of everything that allowed others to die and stole glory from Him. He broke me because HE LOVED ME.
He broke me of myself… and all of a sudden, I was free.
This new year has been awesome. I’m not talking about everything going right, because well, that hasn’t happened and it actually doesn’t happen most of the time. I suppose when I say that, I mean right in man’s eyes.
For the first time in my walk with the Lord, His Word actually is alive and I love it. I understand what it means to need it like it is food and drink. I went to Passion 2012 a few weeks ago, and it was so wild when just the very reading of the Scriptures washed me. The Spirit showed me just how mighty and powerful His word is… it is real and it is His very words. I can honestly say I have never felt that way about His word. It has changed everything in my life. I know it was nothing I did either… I was just broken of myself and ready to receive whatever Christ had to say.
He repaired what was empty in me. He showed me how I found my identity in my circumstances and what had happened to me in the past six months. It’s really odd how we do that to ourselves… we seriously hold on to what is so bad and it becomes who we are. We lose all that God says we are. God says we are to be identified in Him. That’s because who He is truly is enough for us. His grace is sufficient and his mercy is unending. He tells us who we are and He made us for Him.. He does not tell us who we are based on our circumstances or failures; we all what to be accepted. We were designed that way because God wanted us to be found in Him. Yet we run to everything else instead of Him.. So no wonder we are left empty and dissatisfied— we try to find who we are in the things that are temporary and only leave us empty. And in seeing my depravity and everything I looked to, He showed me how He was enough. And all of a sudden, I was whole.
Brokenness made life not about me anymore and it happened to be one of the most brilliant and beautiful things to happen yet in my life. I have been broken at many points in my life, but I can say that this season has been the hardest and yet most remarkable.
Jesus really is all that He says He is and He really does make all things new.
My friends, take heart. If you are broken or resisting it, please let go. God has beautiful things in store. This life was never about me and you—- the more we try to make it, the more miserable it becomes and the more our world dies and suffers. It is all about the very God who loves us enough to make us new… so let Him.
