BROKEN

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and a contrite heart, O God
thou wilt not despise
Psalm 57:17

Several years ago, I spent about a year going back to school for training in the medical assistant field. Aside from many career choices available to me when young, I wanted very badly to be a nurse. Circumstances prevented that choice at the time. That time of training as a Medical Assistant only served to give me a deeper appreciation of God's creative genius in forming the human body. Think of the functioning of these miraculous human machines, things the body does to take care of itself...things we don't have to give any thought to. I don't tell myself to breathe nor do I have to make my heart beat. My eyes blink, my hair grows, the digestive system does it's job and on and on it goes. Again I say that God is just so very smart.

One of the amazing things I learned during that time of training was how the human body takes care of broken bones. I broke a bone in my wrist on one occasion. I could only recall the pain and the resulting cast that was put on that wrist. It had to be on there for what seemed like an eternity. The pain subsided and I then had to learn to do many things left handed. When the cast came off, there were therapy sessions required and soon, life got back to normal.

All I could see for a time was swelling, but the miraculous healing was not brought about through a doctor's instruction, the cast I had to wear (although it was a necessary nuisance) and even therapy sessions. The healing was taking place inside the wrist where I couldn't see what was happening. The moment that bone broke, that bone, though broken apart began an amazing process. Without using long words, I learned that at the time of setting the break, a fluid was released that began to wrap itself around that broken area of the bone. That milky looking fluid, the bone's super glue, kept wrapping itself around that break and formed what is called a “callus.” Specialists will tell us that if we have had a broken bone, that at that break is one of the strongest places on that bone that can be imagined. On an x-ray, it's noticeable where a break has taken place. That's how doctors can read an x-ray and give a bone history either to a patient or even to a court of law when looking at child abuse issues. So the bone, by God's masterful design, quietly does it's job and we don't have to think about it.

We read of shepherds in Scripture. One thing a shepherd did if he had a sheep that insisted on straying from him and the flock was to break the leg of that erring sheep. The shepherd would then carry that sheep around on his shoulders. The shepherd, for the sake of the sheep's safety, had to break a leg of the sheep in order to break the will. I've had times in my life when I wanted to go my own selfish way and because of my resistant will, God had to take measures to break that sinful will in me. He may not have allowed one of my bones to be broken, but His methods were holy and sure and often were heart breaking for me personally. The result of that brokenness though, in the end, was very beneficial and brought me back and near to my Shepherd.

Some broken things just can't be fixed. One day while emptying my dishwasher, a large handled knife dropped from the top rack to the bottom one. I suddenly heard the sound of breaking glass. Looking in I saw that the knife had landed on the inside of a 9x13 glass cake dish and had broken that dish into three large pieces. It had been my Mother's dish. It still had an old piece of tape with her last name on it taped to the underside of the dish. She had used that dish to take food to church potlucks or to homes where there had been a death in the family. That dish meant a great deal to me and with great sadness, I carefully wrapped its pieces and placed them in the garbage can. Broken...no super glue could mend it or even salvage it in any way. It was like something special in my life had died. But we are not dishes of glass. Life may have brought some chips and nicks here and there into our lives. We may go through times of breaks, but with the Lord, never to the point of total destruction.

Any loss in our lives can break us if we try to handle it alone. God will never waste those times and will bring us back to wholeness. A broken bone even after healthy healing will never be as it was before...the mark on that bone will always be there. However, in God's plan, that bone becomes stronger because of that break. The same is true for us. God wants us to learn from those broken times in our lives and come out stronger in the end. There are any number of things that can bring about breakage in our lives, such as:

...betrayal
...divorce
...death of loved one
...erring children
...persecution
...financial woes
...health issues
...broken friendships
...teenage breakups
...job loss

You could add to that list any of those things that caused you to go through a broken time in your life. We have to keep in mind that as those things happen, God is working to bring mending to our situation even though we can't see Him working. He will bring a new strength into our lives that we never thought could be possible.

In all of this is a reminder found in Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” There are two things to remember from this verse when we go through those broken-heart times. The first thing is that our Lord is nigh...close...to them of a broken heart. Then He honors those who are of a contrite spirit...that person who is repentant of personal sin and self seeking.

I must also remind us that Jesus knew a lot about being broken as He walked this earth. He saw broken people everywhere He went and their needs. He also went through His own time of brokenness. We too often forget what the perfect Son of God endured for us. In First Corinthians 11:24, Paul takes us back to that last supper time of Jesus with His disciples. “And when He had given thanks, He brake it (the bread) and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” Jesus didn't have any broken bones on that cross, but He certainly had a broken heart for the sins of mankind. No matter what we go through in this life that breaks our hearts and spirits, we must remember that Jesus suffered like no other. He can relate to our breaks and hurts. He's not a removed Savior but is near, sustains and heals us.

Someone put a wonderful prayer on Facebook lately that I thought was so encouraging. No author was given but it reads as follows:

Lord
Enlighten what's dark in me
Strengthen what's weak in me
Mend what's broken in me
Bind what's bruised in me
Heal what's sick in me,

and lastly, bring

to life what
has died in me.
Amen

By the way...God wants to use our brokenness in ways we can't imagine possible.