Broken
A few weeks ago, shortly after Cole’s entire arm was casted for an injury caused by a pillow fight with his brother (leave it to boys!), I was lying in my bed as he attempted to climb up next to me. With both arms reached out in front of him and his tiny fingers gripping the sheets, Cole pushed his upper body against the side of the bed with everything he had and, at the same time, tried to heave his legs up and over. The little man is only a head taller than the bed itself, but he’s done this exact maneuver with ease a hundred times before. That day, however, Cole emphatically cried out in frustration, “I can’t do it! I have a broken arm!”
With compassion and laughter, I helped pull my pitiful three-year-old up onto the bed with me, of course. In the moment, it was sweet and funny, but since then, I’ve been thinking about all the times I’ve cried out to God in a similar fashion; I’ve been praying for all the people in Israel, crying out in their brokenness; I’ve been lifting up a friend who I know is utterly broken by the state of her marriage, and I’ve been wondering if, perhaps, you have ever cried out to God, too, saying something along the lines of, “I can’t do it, God. I have a broken heart.”
Or, “God, I am broken. What am I supposed to do now?”
Or, “How do I keep going, God? How do I climb up this mountain, fully accomplish that task, or just face tomorrow, when it seems these pieces of me will always be broken?”
David knew what it felt like to be broken. Broken by his own sin. Broken by the sin of others who chased him down with the intent to kill him. Broken by the broken world that surrounded him. Broken and weary, though, David consistently cried out to God for help. And so should we. God is a far greater Father than I am a mother, and if I had compassion and came to the rescue of Cole, how much more will God reach out to help us when we call to Him for help?
Writing a book about my past has made me feel more broken than ever, and honestly, I don’t want to do it anymore. As I finish what I started by adding more content, completing edits, and polishing what’s already been written, I am weary of looking back. I am weary of vulnerability. And despite not knowing what’s got you down and defeated lately or what pieces of you need healing, I do know Jesus is precisely who we all need – the greatest listener and friend we could ever ask for.
In Psalm 5, David writes, “Listen to my words, LORD, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly” (Psalms 5:1-3).
Indeed, our King hears our voice when we lift it up to Him. He listens to every cry for help, and He protects us in the midst of all our brokenness.
David goes on to say, “I, by your great love, can come into your house, in reverence I bow down toward your holy temple…let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. Surely, LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield” (Psalms 5:7, 11-12).
We – as sons and daughters of the King – get to come into His presence and take refuge. We trade our brokenness in for His righteousness and joy. We trade our sorrow and fears in for His protection. We curl up in His lap and pour out our hearts to Him. Psalms 62:8 says, “Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”
Even when we pour out our hearts, though, sometimes God is silent; sometimes the pain from our wounds take longer to heal than we’d prefer, and sometimes we still feel broken. (And truthfully, we may in fact still be broken, because while God does heal and delights in our restoration, not all of what is broken in us and around us in this world will be fixed until Jesus comes back.) Yet, He is not ignoring our pain. In His wisdom and grace, God gives us time to process and space to let us have our emotions and the freedom to feel things intensely. What if, in His silence, He is intentionally listening to our cries, simply letting us be seen and heard? To which I’d argue is exactly what we need. What if the most healing truth we can be sure of is that He is listening?
We can rest in His silent responses – we can embrace the quiet – because He is enough. He is Immanuel, God with us. Jesus holds us safely in His loving arms, listening and filling us with strength, hope, and peace just by being there with Him. We can keep going, even in our brokenness, because being with Jesus – our healer and refuge, our Savior – exceeds all else. We don’t need Him to say or fix anything. We merely need Him.
