Yep...I set this new blog up with full intentions to use it as a spiritual tool, an aide to help me during one of my darkest times. And I failed.
It's been what....3 or 4 months since I started this?
To be honest, it's been so hard....that I'm afraid to write.
I've been afraid to put words to the struggle. Then I would have to face it, to really deal with it. If I lay out the pain, and the broken pieces of my life, then I have to see just how shattered I am right now. Let's be real.... it's so much easier to just keep pushing, just keep ignoring, just keep shoving the dark stuff way down deep. That way you can just move on....just get back to the good....to the happy.
NO more. It's time to start. I need to be stronger. I need to be more grounded, more peaceful.
Really....I'm just weak and afraid. But right now I'm MORE afraid of who I will become if I don't take a closer look at my broken pieces.
One of the boys had a blue ceramic lizard that his grandparents had given him. We kept the lizard on top of their bathroom counter as a decoration. Well to a curious, playful boy any lizard (real or ceramic) can't just be decoration, it must go on adventures. The blue lizard did have quite a few adventures, until his tail broke. No fear...super glue came to our rescue. We fixed the blue lizard's tail up in a flash (well a few hours). Back to the bathroom counter our little blue friend returned. However several more adventures later in the hands of one frolicsome little boy, we found another piece falling off of the lizard. This time it took a little more glue to fix our fragile reptile. Several weeks went by and the glued-together lizard started collecting dust on top of the counter. Sure he would get the occasional spray of toothpaste, but he kept his vigil next to the hand soap.
Thinking back I cannot recall the exact details of the fateful day. But the day came when the blue lizard faced tragedy. It was a moment filled with a crash and several broken blue ceramic pieces scattered all over the floor. Little hands tried as hard as they could to help pick up all of the pieces. We gathered what was left of our lizard friend's body carefully onto a plate. Big brown eyes looked at me with hope and promise....if we fixed him the first two times, surely we can fix him again.
One super glue bottle and several sticky fingers later, the situation looked grim. I had to relay the bad news, it didn't look like we could fix the lizard this time. However the news didn't rob by son of his hope. That lizard's best friend was willing to wait for him. Days....then weeks went by. Yet the broken lizard stayed broken, sitting in the middle of his shattered pieces. Just sitting on the kitchen counter reminding me every single time I passed him that I hadn't tried again.
This is how I feel right now. Broken, in the middle of my shattered pieces.
In times past, with God's grace, I have successfully glued myself back together. You know what I mean, don't you?
That there are times in our lives that we get hit, or we fall. And then a piece of ourselves gets broken.
Sometimes it's just a little piece, sometimes it's a little bigger. Those times have come in my life, yet it always seems to get fixed, so I can move on.
But this time it's been different.
I have felt shattered....not just broken.
And for the last few months...I've been sitting in the middle of my pieces, feeling overwhelmed, feeling tired, and not knowing where to begin.
This may come as a shock to many of you that know me. You may be thinking "but she seems to have it all together". I've been realizing that I've just been gluing the pieces back together quickly so it looks good on the outside. Through the last several years I've been doing "quick fixes" to make it look good and put together, but in realty the inside is barely hanging on, and so fragile. And maybe that's the problem maybe now I'm realizing that that fragile inside, is what has finally given up.
So what's changed? Nothing really.
I am just now slowly learning that I can't fix it this time. And that there is no body else in this world that can fix it either. I have to stop expecting other people in my life to pick up my shattered pieces.
I'm also accepting that my broken life cannot be put back together quickly.
There is only ONE way to be fixed.
God is so good. HE is always good and faithful.
And right now I'm learning to allow HIM to fix me....in His time, in His way. I'm learning to BE in my brokenness... to understand that each shattered piece is still a part of me....
that I don't have to be "put together" to be whole.
Despite our brokenness Our Father sees our perfection....and it's because of our brokenness that HE can make us perfect.
Today my prayer is that you will allow our Lord, our Healer to mend your brokenness....that you take some time to see and to feel your shattered pieces of your past, your life....then lay them before the cross. Offer your brokenness to our Savior. Then allow Him to heal you, let Him LOVE you....every single shattered piece of you. He is waiting with HOPE and expectation of the adventures you will have together.
