“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” –Psalm 147 : 3
Well I’ll get straight to the point…BROKENNESS SUCKS!!!
It’s not fun for me to fall on my face before God and cry to the point that I could mop the floor with my own tears. It’s not fun for me to re-live all of the bad memories in my life. It’s not fun for me to feel all the grime and junk come up through the pores of my skin (metaphorically speaking of course). BROKENNESS IS NOT FUN.…but it is needed.
It is during brokenness, when you have nothing left, that you can see God the most because you are finally out of the picture. He is your daddy…cry on his shoulder. He will gladly sweep you up into his arms and talk to you in his soft, gentle voice. To get through brokeness you HAVE to be close to God. You have to say “please God, hold my hand and walk me through this mess.” He doesn’t want you to go through it on your own. God doesn’t use brokenness to tear you down and leave you in shambles, he breaks you so that he can finally re-mold you as He desires. God is getting rid of the gunk in your life so that there is more room for LOVE. As much as I don’t want the whole world to know the gross stuff in my life I decided to share my story anyways….hopefully it can help at least one person. So here goes….
I grew up knowing God, loving God, and choosing God–until I was a junior in Highschool. That is when my party life began. Instead of choosing God I chose alcohol, sexand a worldy life. I distanced myself from God. I knew what I was doing was wrong…but I didn’t want to do anything about it. I let those things in my life satisfy me…and lets be honest…it felt good to be in charge of my own life. I had a lot of “friends” and always felt like the center of attention. But being in charge of your own life doesn’t ever work out for your benefit. Without letting God be in charge of your life…you are guaranteed to have a downward spiral. A lot of my “friends” betrayed me, lied to me, cheated me, etc. My way of dealing with that hurt, was to party more and “forget” the pains people had caused me.
There comes a point when pain can’t be covered by more pain anymore, and that is what partying was doing. I finally decided enough was enough and began to get out of the party scene. I CRAVED God again. I had been running away for far to long. Living life on my own wasn’t working…I not only wanted God but NEEDED him desperately.
Getting out of the party scene wasn’t easy. People stopped calling me once they discovered I wouldn’t be at the next big party. There was no one to hang out with on weekends.. because nobody wanted to skip a cool party to just- hang out. I began to realize that my popularity consisted of extream superficiality. I went from feeling like the center of attention to feeling depressingly ALONE. Because I engolfed myself in the party scene…I was no longer surrounded by christain friends and good influences. I felt as if I was on my own. I was going to have to make a choice…98% of my friends, feeling good about myself and partying it up OR God. Although God should be the obvious choice…it wasn’t a concept I wanted to grasp. Choosing God meant learning how to give up “my world” and learning how to be satisfied with God. Did I want to take the path less traveled?…the path with huge boulders, roller-coaster hillsl, thorn bushes, quick sand and booby traps…HECK NO!!!! But something in my life had to change and deep down I knew that meant choosing God.
Making the right choices in my life meant even more lies and betrayals from my friends. I would be on the right track for a while, someone would stab me where it hurt the most and I would revert back to what I knew….Drinking. I didn’t want to deal with the issue, so I would just push it down deep inside and “party it away”, just so I could feel good in the moment. The next morning I would feel guilty about drinking and that would lead to even more pain and regret. There were times where I stayed away from alcohol for a year time and felt so close to God, but when something would happen that I just didn’t want to deal with…I was right back into the party scene. This was literally a 3 year tug-o-war game in my life. I would take 3 giant steps forward and then 4 giant steps backwards. Honestly, up until a month before I applied for the World Race this was still an ongoing thing for me. Did I sign up for the World Race with wrong intentions…SURE DID!! After I was on the right track (for the 200th time) I wanted out. Not just to another city…I wanted to get FAR away from that dark hole of a town I was living in. The World Race was a way to not
only get far away but to keep myself on the right track for good. After I got accepted I remember saying “Ok God, its you and me this year…you better show up in huge ways and teach me to hear your voice and wack me hard so that I don’t come back to this nonsense ever again.”
So where does that leave me now? Well, it left me plastered to the ground on my face before God, crying my eyes out. All the betrayals, lies, hurts, pains, junk and grime that I had pushed deep down inside me and “partied away” was now coming to the surface. All the emotions I didn’t want to feel were bubbling up and pouring out of me. As I was sobbing on the floor I kept wondering why noone was coming up to pray for me and help me through this mess. That’s when God clearly said “Hey, remember when you said its me and you this year?…well here it is…learn how to work through this with ME and not by leaning on other people.” The funny thing is I had people come up to me afterwards and tell me how they wanted to come pray with me but God strongly told them not too. My teamate Lauren was the first person I saw when I looked up. She was sitting there, starting at me…a good comic relief after a good cry. She said God told her not to pray with me so instead, she just sat and waited for me to be done. As I walk through this brokeness, its not easy and its not fun, but the end result will be totally worth it. It hasn’t been the fastest process but thats ok. During the up times in my life God has showed up huge. He has touched me in ways that will make me never doubt him. However, it is in the down times that he showed he will NEVER leave me or forsake me. He was always there to catch my tears and remind me of his never ending love. I am ready to be refined and made into the person God wants me to be…so that he can show up in even crazier ways than He already has. He is saying “ITS TIME!” Run to me and don’t look back. Grab ahold of me and lets Go!!
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.” –Romans 12 :
