What do you do with your broken pieces?

“I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them.Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved.They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”   

John 10:7b-10 NLT

There was a time several years ago when my husband and I were dating that he wanted to walk me home. I don’t remember the full extent of our conversation, but I do remember him insisting to take me to my front door. I remember saying something silly, I remember the glow of dusk lighting up behind him like a picturesque silhouette, and I remember thinking the moment was full of everything lovely. And then, he threw a violent conniption fit. Arms flailing, legs pumping, screams bursting something shattered the idyllic moment and I stood there stupefied. It all became clear when he yelled “I walked through a spider web! Didn’t you see it?!” As understanding dawned on me, I burst into laughter. I hadn’t noticed the spider web, but apparently it had noticed him, and that was what had caused the outburst. For my husband, it was something real and abhorrent. For me, it was nothing more than an unexpected (albeit hilarious) outburst. I didn’t see it. He did. I didn’t feel it. He did. I didn’t experience it. He did. 

Neither perspective was untrue, it was just different takes on the same reality. 

I think that is where broken pieces get us friend. 

We go through pain, disappointment, and grief, and internalize our experience as normal, like a filter (or spider web) that affects our life. Then, everything we experience, is viewed through that filter as reality. The truth is while the experience, and feelings, are real, we have to bring our experiences back to truth, not exalt our experiences over truth. There’s no better place for us to rest in the truth than in the person of Jesus. 

I see it in myself, and maybe you see this in you too. It is all too often, and all too easy to lift our circumstances above the truth of God’s word, his heart and his character. Whether is it grief, pain, or disappointment…….we often let the feelings/thoughts/ experience become our filter instead of our experience with God or the truth of his Word. In short, we let the broken pieces define us instead of our healing and the Healer. 

I don’t think this was ever God’s intention for us. 

I think that our broken pieces are actually an invitation to a greater story. I think God wants us to be saved, healed, and whole. I think that God wants us to be delivered into his arms and found trusting in him. I think that the broken pieces are actually a mosaic of a doorway beckoning us to come into a place of restoration. Sometimes our perception, based on our experience, like unseen spider webs makes us stay a little too long in the conniption instead of camping out on and in the truth of what God has to say to us. 

The truth is:

There is a high priest who intercedes for us. 

There is a way through our pain not just out of it. 

There is hope for us in our broken pieces, we are not defined by our brokenness. 

We are loved, and no amount of pieces will ever take the reality of that away. 

Instead of getting lost in the pain or disappointment, bring that experience back to Jesus. Ask him to make a way through. To show you what he is doing, and to remind you of his promise for abundant life. The enemy wants to take you out, don’t let him! Be found in the One who wants to give you life, and life abundantly.

So much love,

Joy