Brokenness

While I fall deeply into love, while I am swept off my feet by a man so wonderful, so great.  Chaos storms around us, not directly affecting us but our community. In the past month and a half four lives, all kids under the age of 19 have been swept into death and the cloud that covers this town is heavy. 

Death is all over the news in our towns, in our country, in our world. Isn't life so surreal? One falls in love, one dies, one marries, one buries a loved one? It's too much to think about some days, the journey of our lives, the laughter, the blessings, the joys, and then the valleys of loss, pain, sadness, and deep sorrow.

I dont' mean to dampen the mood of "love in the air" because it is soo there and trust me I have no doubt there will be more love posts! Kevin is incredible, he's hard to resist sharing about. But I do find it hard to only speak of love, as if to say when my pain ceases so does everyone elses. My fb pet peeve is insensitivity.

Life is going really well for me, but I still gaze into a painful world, a world full of brokenness. We can try to gaze beyond the brokenness, try and wear lenses that block it all out. Smile even though we're torn by all we see. The brokeness can fill our homes, we can't escape it, our families are torn by the cracks and the baggage of this world. It's easy when you watch the pain of others on the news, you can turn that off but to actually realize there is so much brokenness just outside your door and that it effects you and calls you to do something about it, or I suppose ignore it until you no longer can is a very big deal. 

I look around me and see the families of loved ones taken by death in unbearable pain, a friend cries herself to sleep over an ex that has ripped her world apart. I see a single mother barely holding on. I see the arrows of painful words pierce another friend. I see betrayal and lies and gossip. Some of that stuff is centered on selfishness, but some of it is the fact that we live in world littered with imperfect ppl doing imperfect things (aka sin). 

I am reading the book, "A thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp and wow, it is such a good read! A hard read though, but soo worth it!! And by hard I mean she doesnt' sugar coat a thing, says it just like it is, so by hard I mean great, life changing:) 

She describes humans so well: 

"We are hungry. We eat. We are filled...... and emptied" (because we eat the wrong things, the things that don't really fill us)

We crave something more than this brokenness. We crave LOVE so we find a compatible partner. We crave acceptance so we make sure we're accepted (I know, that was a deep one) We crave beauty so we dress the role, we wear beauty. We crave control so we find a way to be in control of something (just ask my strata president:) We can find love, we can find beauty and control but it wont' heal us, it will only help for a little while.


We try to fix what is broken, but we use glue that doesn't hold and definitely doesn't heal.  I am a crafter, I know glue doesn't hold as well as it claims. Spray glue, wood glue, gorilla glue, it's not all the same and none of it holds forever, just ask the pumpkins I tried to stack:) But you know what glue I mean...the stuff we use as bandaids to cover our brokenness. We all want a world not torn by evil, isn't peace the ultimate dream?

It's easy to find yourself at the end of the day, when the make-up is off, the friends are gone for the night, the fun is over for the day and we lay in our beds and our hearts are still left craving more, we can have a good day and still crave more. 

I think it is our hearts that are the real problem, our hearts have holes, our souls have holes, they need to be fixed if we are to live the way we were made to live... maybe I'm preaching to the choir, but just maybe one of you can't sing;) 


Our hearts, our souls, whatever you call it. The part of us that craves MORE. What if we fix the root of the problem rather than trying to decorate the branches? 


Even for Christians, the days I am craving something more are the days I filled myself with everything BUT Jesus. I fill myself with him and I am satisfied, everytime.

"In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD" How did Jesus overcome the world? 


WITH LOVE

He overcame this broken messed up world so that our hearts could be fixed and that we can have a relationship with God, so that when we find ourselves feeling emptiness, and craving something more we find HIM and we are satisfied and crave no longer, He is enough. 

Even as Christians we may have the right foods in front of us but we don't always choose to eat the "God foods" which are the foods that heals, restores and fills until we are satisfied. 


We will constantly b disappointed if we search for the ultimate satisfaction in the things this world has to offer.

So if you are human. If you live in this world you see the brokenness and now you know, if you didn't already, that there is a healer, there is hope and there is beauty beyond the devastation. We were made for more, but our souls are lost, they r dislodged from their ultimate purpose, that purpose being found in Jesus' death and resurrection.  


I have craved alot in this life, but nothing satisfies like God, He is the one who fills that emptiness. there is No escaping the pain and the ruin, being a Christian doesn't mean life is fixed, but there is one who can save your soul from it's own ruin and restore you to what you were meant to be, bc there is only one who can complete you. And trust me when you are filled with Jesus your journey will be one of beauty, no matter what happens along the way. 
The beauty of feeling empty is that it opens us to the opportunity to b filled.


Grasp the immense love of God and soak in it. Let the love that Jesus showed at the cross rain down over your life, and soak in his grace, let him take your brokeness and your pain FROM living in a broken world and let his love penetrate your life. Choose Jesus and let him show you just who He is.