The Broken Bone

So I was thinking about my pasts posts and realized they aren't particularly upbeat, though hopeful (I hope).  So I wanted to write about something much more positive this time, though the title does not lend itself in that direction, but trust me, this will be good. :) 

I was thinking about how when you break a bone, they say it grows back stronger.  I heard that so many times after Wes and I decided to work on our marriage after having been broken so deeply.  But I am here to testify to the truth behind it, and the truth that holds for all of us in areas of brokeness in our lives.  There are quite a few times in my life that I can testify to having been broken.  Broken hearted, broken in spirit, broken in faith.  Some were deeper levels of brokeness than others but working through each thing and coming out on the other side, I have become stronger.  Stronger in heart, stronger in spirit, and stronger in faith. As the brokeness healed in each of those areas, the healing created a much stronger me in many ways. 

As we work to put our marriage to rights and our family back together, we are stronger than ever, stronger as individuals and stronger as a couple.  Though the world and our spiritual enemy have tried to created cracks in our marriage again, our foundation is strong.  We are truly a team and face everything as such.  There is complete openness and honesty.  There is complete love and acceptance of each others "bad days."  It seems like an impossibility some days, but as God tells us, nothing is impossible for Him. 

I am so thankful for God's continued faithfulness to us.  He has built a new, stronger, marriage out of the shattered peices of what had been our marriage before.  I am not going to go on to suggest that my marriage is perfect, none can be with imperfect people, but I am proud of my marriage, of what God has made of it.   I think of how marriage is a play act of God's relationship with His church.  In so many ways, I feel closer to that idea than ever before.  God brings about a marriage between Himself and His church despite the brokeness of that relationship as well.  Through sacrifice and perseverance, that relationship is restored, as is my own. 

This idea of becoming stronger through brokeness is true for every area of my life.  As God wants to bring about that truth in all our lives.  Finding a way to work through the brokeness leads to the healing that God wants to give us.  Running away from or hiding from our pain is not healing and it is not going to make us stronger in the long run.  Eventually all those hurts we run from will catch up and we will find ourselves trying to deal with them all at one time instead of taking one at a time, as they originally came to us.  Could you imagine trying to use every workout machine at the same time?  You might eventually get stronger but it would take longer and be much harder than if you dealt with each area one at a time. 

 

The next question is "how?"  How do we do that?  Well, I am not a professional but I can say for me, what has worked.  Letting myself feel the brokeness, to process it.  Prayer, constant, unceasing prayer.  Being honest with myself, being able to discover my role, whether good or bad, in the situation.  This gives me the wisdom to not make the same mistakes again.  Forgiveness, complete, permanent forgiveness.  Forgiveness of myself as well as others, this is a choice not an emotion.  Learning to move on, this is also a choice.  Not staring back at the hurt, allowing it to affect my hour, my day, my week, and so on.  And by finding someone to talk through it all when needed.  Even if I am not looking for advice, it helps just saying things many times.  And in the case of my marriage, finding a professional was helpful.  I have never felt that there was any shame in getting professional help when needed, but I just always thought I could find a way to work through things myself, my foolish pride.  But there really is no shame in not being able to handle everything or work through everything with out the help of a professional. 

With perseverance and faith, brokeness can heal and we will be stronger in heart, faith, and spirit!