Gracefully Broken

Do you ever hear or read something a million times, and then one day when you read or hear it, it speaks to you a totally different way?

I’ve sung Tasha Cobbs Leonard’s “Gracefully Broken” a million times- at church, at home, in the car- but when I heard it this week, the lyrics really hit me.  I love when God does that…Each day I ask that He opens my eyes and my ears.  I want to SEE him working in my life, and I want to HEAR his truth.  And, He does this ever so sweetly.

We are all broken. In different ways. We live in a broken world, and we are not shielded from the evil around us.  Sometimes the sin in our lives is active and we recognize it; sometimes it is passive and it is happening to us. But regardless, it’s always there.  It’s in the news. It’s in our neighborhoods. It’s in our homes.  It’s in our hearts.

We ask why.  We try to make sense of it. We want to cry out it’s not fair. And, it’s not.  We want our circumstances to change. We want to exchange our worry and sadness for peace and joy. We pray and pray. And, pray some more.  But we are still broken.  We live among the broken. And, we still live in a broken world. 

But we don’t have to be bitterly broken.

We don’t have to be offensively broken.

We don’t have to be cruelly broken.

We don’t have to be spitefully broken.

We live in a society where we chase happiness, and we don’t always understand when life isn’t all butterflies and rainbows. However, God does not promise an easy and perfect life when we choose Him.  That is where I think so many of us get confused. If we love God, we wonder why He is doing THIS to us. 

But He is not doing IT to us.

The enemy is all around us and tells us a good and loving God would never make you experience brokenness.  And, he will offer excuses and justifications for behaviors that cause you to depend and act on your own understanding.  He makes it sound SO good and SO believable.  After all, he will creep around in sheep’s clothing.  But sometimes the enemy is so obvious, and our eyes are closed. We want what we want. And, we miss how God is working to bless us. 

We miss being Gracefully Broken. 

Instead, if we have faith in God, His ways, His truth, His promises, then we can experience His love and His undeserved favor in the brokenness.  But the thing is we have to open our eyes to it.  We pray and we praise Him.  We trust His ways are good. And, we lay it all down at His feet.

And, the beautiful thing is…

when you know that God has blessed you in the middle of your storm, in your struggle, in your battle…

when you know you don’t deserve all he has given you….

when you know His love has surpassed all your adversities….

Then you know you have been gracefully broken…..

“Here I am God, arms wide open

Pouring out my life
Gracefully broken.”

(“Gracefully Broken” by Tasha Cobbs Leonard)