We can lay our brokenness before the world or we can lay it before the Lord.
These were the words I felt whirling around my head during worship one Sunday.
The decision clearly at my feet.
We’ve all experienced brokenness. Maybe it was the harsh words that slashed at your good intentions or the offense that was taken because someone treated you badly. Maybe it was a situation that left you heartbroken or confused. Maybe it’s a long-suffering circumstance or state of mind that has made its way into your day to day life and you can’t even begin to find your way out of it.
I can let the hurt, rejection, and disappointment of a situation cause me to lay my heartache out for all the world or I can lay it before God.
Laying it out before the world feels good at times. Complaining and finding commissary temporarily relieves the sting. Lamenting my case to those closest may be justifiable but it won’t change it.
Matter of fact, brokenness left unchecked will turn to bitterness.
Contempt.
And it will seep out into our interactions.
Control our hearts.
Or maybe laying it out before the world brings relief, but it’s temporary as you cannot escape your own mind and night comes to us all.
Perhaps it was laid out before the world without your say. Discredited and ashamed, you’re swirling around in despair and you’ve given up all hope.
Brokenness left abandoned leads to open wounds that you carry around.
Crushed.
This sense of helplessness feels like defeat has become a part of your DNA.
But someone or something has caused you hurt and try as you may, it just won’t go away.
The thing is, brokenness stays broken when I lay it out for the world.
Brokenness is restored when I place it in the mighty hands of God.
When I take every hurt and the thoughts attached to those hurts and hold them captive to God’s word…
When I lay all my disappointment and expectations out before God…
When I ask God to remove the sting that pains my heart…
When I fix my eyes on God and seek his presence, I stop sinking and I start rising…
I can rest in the knowledge that God hears me…he sees me…and he does not abandon me.
I can let his great love wash over my hurt, wave after wave, reminding me who I am and whose I am.
I can resolve to trade it in for peace and joy as I rest in his sovereignty.
I can allow God to use that hurt to grow my heart instead of break it.
To change me instead of control me.
To restore me instead of wreck me.
The world can’t take the hole in my heart and make it whole again.
But God can.
He can mend the heart because He made it.
Brokenness placed before God can be pieced back together in the light of His love and infinite wisdom.
It will look different because I will be different, but I am changed either way.
Will it be by the hand that set the stars and spoke the world into existence?
The one who can redeem that which is broken and use it for His glory?
The choice is mine.
The choice is ours.