I asked for it at the beginning of the month. I knew the price that would come with what I was asking for, and I asked for it anyway. Brokenness. And let me tell you, when you ask the Lord for brokenness and you truly want it, be prepared for what is ahead of you because it is a prayer He will faithfully answer.
I asked for brokenness at the beginning of the month, and my request came from a fairly narrow perspective. I wanted the Lord to break my heart for what I saw and experienced this month with the girls in ministry. I didn’t want to walk down the streets and be calloused and closed off to the emotions that I “should” feel in that environment. I wanted my heart to break for their brokenness. I wanted to feel their pain and to weep for and with them. This is where my request sprung from…
On our travel day to Thailand (1 day after I had first expressed this desire for brokenness), the Lord began the breaking process in me. It started with a sleepless 30+ hours on our travel day, including a night spent wandering around the Singapore airport during our 8 hour overnight layover (for those of you who know me well, you know I don’t sleep when things are going on around me). We arrived at our ministry and I felt like everything was crashing around me – little things, like finding out four of my teammates were put in a separate room from the other girls. On little sleep everything felt magnified 100x in its ability to overwhelm me. In the middle of our team prayer I just lost it…and I don’t cry in front of people so that was weird. It was hard for me to be that vulnerable and to feel that I had no control over it.
As the month wore on, God kept taking one thing after another in which I found security or comfort. As my squad leader wisely says, “God cares far more about your character than He does about your comfort.” SO true! He put opportunities in my life for me to be stretched – the four of us ended up moving into the room with the others (which somehow pushed me out of my comfort zone again), I was nominated the team driver because I knew how to drive a manual transmission (so I had to quickly learn to drive on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, and shift left handed…), and working in the bar scene in and of itself pushed me far beyond the boundaries of my comfort zone.
In the midst of the physical challenges and adjustments, I continued to desire brokenness. But the enemy found an open door and I found myself clinging to old lies I used to believe and somehow believing that what I was holding on to was what I was looking for. I felt lonely and alone, and I let myself believe that it was part of the breaking process – having everything stripped away. But what I didn’t realize is that I was stripping that away, not God. I was closing myself off to the community He had put in my life and living in a self-imposed loneliness because of fear. Fear of rejection. Fear that if I let the 11 girls I was with see what was really going on inside of me, they would leave me alone. So instead of facing loneliness coming from “possible” rejection, I imposed rejection on myself and walked alone.
Until I broke. And I broke hard. We had an all night prayer vigil on our 2nd to last Friday night in ministry, and I was up almost the whole night. I desperately wanted someone to reach out and pray with me, but there were several hours in which no one else was even in the room. I was furious with God. “Really, God? Even when I pray You are going to leave me alone? Why are people never around when I need them? Why don’t You talk to me when I need You?” It was a long night and I felt like I was praying to a brick wall. As if my prayers were bouncing right back at me and I was getting no response. I was angry, but I didn’t know at who or even why. I felt incapable of reaching out to anyone around me because of the fear that held me back from vulnerability. I felt alone.
On the following Sunday, after four nearly sleepless nights in a row, I hit my breaking point. I let someone in on the struggle going on inside of me. I let several someone’s in actually. And they listened. They understood. They loved. And they didn’t leave me alone. “What? I thought vulnerability equaled rejection. These girls actually want to know me, even when I am not ok?” It was a point of breakthrough. It was a point of truth becoming reality.
On Monday, I spent several hours alone with the Lord. I was scared to death going into that time, that my prayers would hit the brick wall again and I would feel abandoned by God. But He was there…like He always has been. But I refused to let the lies of the enemy stand in the way of me hearing Him again. And as I started reading His Word, He began to show me verse after verse about freedom and being a conqueror. I mean, it was God literally turning the pages of my Bible for me, because there is no way I could have found all of those verses by myself. A teammate spoke truth into my life that afternoon as well, about walking away from the things that I have already overcome and not becoming entangled in them again, but choosing to walk away and walk in the freedom that Christ has given me. I felt like chains fell off my heart; I didn’t have to tiptoe around people wishing that they would reach out. I could step out and be honest, be vulnerable, be real, be me…and trust that regardless of the outcome, I am free in Christ and the enemy cannot tie me down to the lies about being “not enough” or “too much” for others to love.
I have learned so much about community this month. And I have learned what it means to be truly broken. Not broken down by fear and lies, but beautifully broken and walking in the freedom of Christ. The difference is that there is joy in being broken by the Lord, because when He breaks you, He builds you up at the same time.
I have heard His voice this month like never before. I have seen His love for me, and for others in ways I have never experienced before. I know it is just the beginning, but I am so enthralled with Him and learning more of what it means to run after Him every day; to pursue His heart daily. He never leaves or forsakes me, no matter what else may be going on around. So I will choose to allow myself to be shaped by the Potter, beautifully broken, so that He can truly use me as His vessel for His perfect purpose.
