When You Are Broken…

Kiss the Son

When you’ve been broken, broken to pieces.
And Your heart begins to faint
’cause you don’t understand.
And when there is nothing to rake from the ashes.
And you can’t even walk
onto the fields of praise.

But I bow down and kiss the Son.
Oh, and I bow down and kiss the Son.

Let the praise of the Lord be in my mouth.
Let the praise of the Lord be in my mouth.

Well, though You slay me, I will trust You, Lord.
Well, though You slay me, I will trust You, Lord.
Though You slay me, I will trust You, Lord.
Though You slay me, I will trust You, Lord.

When the rock falls, falls upon you.
And you get ground to dust
no music for your pain.
You open the windows, the windows of heaven.
And then You opened me
and You crushed me like a rose.

Kevin Prosch

When You Are Broken…

Over the past weekend a couple came to my home church to visit. They shared their story about following the call of God, and how difficult the journey has been. We live in a culture that really requires we “do pretty” all the time. But what happens when the “pretty” has run dry in your life. What happens when the “pretty” is gone when you believed with your whole heart that you were following God. What happens when you have waited for his perfect timing and his will aligning, and the “pretty” is all gone. You are surviving, but nothing is as you had imagined…it’s hard, and it’s not “pretty.” Jen Patrick’s wife said that it was “in this pain she found herself suddenly so alive.” At that moment I burst into tears. I know this story, I’ve lived it.

Someplace in our American church culture, we believed that if we did the right stuff, all our journeys would have a happy, easy ride away in the sunset ending. But what happens the day, week, month and year that no “pretty” is in sight. Lots of us over the last 10 years have set out on journeys.  Journeys we were certain were God directed, prompted, assigned. We have faith at the starting gate…but somehow when all that could go wrong has gone wrong, there is no “pretty” where do we go? Are we angry at God for taking us on this dead end journey? Do we shout and cry and ask the Lord over and over again why it has turned out this way. Why so much loss, why so much pain, when we did our best to follow him. I have at times done all this and more. I have burned 20 years of journals that contained every dream, promise, vision, prophetic utterance ever given to me by God. Because having those journals in my arms that day was just to painful to hold. All those dreams unfulfilled, so much that I had never seen come to pass in my life.

All my life I was one who prayed. As a little girl I would go to bed every night an pray for everyone and everything I could think of. So to say that I didn’t have faith would be wrong. I didn’t meet Jesus until I was already divorced and 24. But God had a plan, He definitely found me and convinced me of his person, his son and the power of the Holy Spirit. All in one very complete moment. But there are those times when you have sought and followed to the best of your ability that you still end up someplace you never dreamed you would be. The “pretty” is all gone…And you are broken, and broken hurts like hell.  You think of all the things one might do in that place of disappointment and pain.  Then the Holy Spirit comes to you in a way that you realize that it is in this broken place; that you have come to meet him and know him best. That in the pain of all this loss, disappointment and ashes you are most alive. You feel deeper than you have ever felt before, you have compassion at a level so intense that when you hear someone else’s story of a difficult journey you weep with them.  You care when the homeless shelter has no hot food on a freezing cold night, your heart begins to leap to try and make someone else feel comforted and loved. You are willing to live with less so someone else might have a bit more.

This pain so deep, so broken, feeling truly as you have been crushed like a rose on path in the summer’s night. But with that crushing the perfume of that rose is released, it begins to swirl in the air, and the sweetness becomes a comfort to you. The rose now transformed, is not longer pretty, but so very fragrant now crushed and bruised on the garden path. Out of our deepest trials, our deepest hurts, when we look in the mirror and see no “pretty” staring back at us, but there is one who see’s great beauty. The maker of us all stands back and admires his beautiful creation. How much like his son Jesus, this one has become. The heart is now tender, the hands are now useful to him, the thoughts have been purified by fire. That journey which seemed so likely to destroy you before you ever reached the shore, is past. The season has changed. You have been changed.

What will you do at the end of such a hard and tiresome journey…I will bow down and Kiss the Son.

Be grateful, humble and love deeply…

P.S. If you need prayer please leave a reply.