So, I’ve wanted to write a blog for a hot sec now, but I couldn’t find the words to speak. I wanted the “right” words, but I am now realizing that there were never any “right” words to begin searching for. I sat and thought about topics to write on for these past months for you all to resonate with and brokenness was a theme that kept resurfacing, but I didn’t know why I had the desire to write on it.
Something that is so apparent in our world today. Throughout this season, I’ve learned that brokenness may come from outer experiences – such as natural disasters, conflicting conversations about this world, or perhaps an instance where the control wasn’t in your hands.
And sometimes, the outer brokenness can maneuver it’s way to the inside. Or maybe your inside brokenness is the very thing that is too bearable to grip onto for even just one more moment — brokenness from a conversation that never happened, a specific rejection you weren’t expecting, or an experience that has hardened somewhere deep in your heart that you had thought disappeared.
I have been in a season. A season of brokenness. A season in the deepest valley of death. A season in the desert. A season with a thorn in my side, that I cannot pull out by my own hands. This has been rough. Draining. Exhausting. All of the above.
I flip through my journal, and I constantly see pieces of my heart from my brokenness — “Here I am yet again. Praying and crying in your arms, Lord.” This season has been a tough fight for me. Battling my own flesh to continue pursuing the Lord, or to just give up. This has been a season of crawling on my hands and knees, pushing with the last drops of energy I’ve got to inch my way closer to the Lord.
Everybody has experienced it in one-way or another, and if you haven’t, you will. Nobody wants to acknowledge it. The aches of brokenness. Our culture teaches us that weakness lessens our worth as a human being. It teaches us that the only way we are going to “make it” is to be strong through everything, and to dismiss or cover up the wounds that hurt.
A month or so ago, I received a tug on my heart by the Lord that directed me straight back home, to Maui, Hawai’i. “Excuse me?” I pushed back in defense-mode. Every bone in my body did not want to move home, but God told me that was where he wanted me for the next 6 months and it was up to me if I wanted to follow His call.
Leaving my best friends?
Leaving the church that has rooted me in His love?
Leaving my comfort zone of the past 4 ½ years?
Trusting the unknown on Maui?
This all pushed me to feel like all I had in my life was brokenness. All I could see was all my wants being stripped from me, and my worries growing. I didn’t understand and I still don’t understand, but once I settled my heart and aligned my mind I realized that this is where God wants me. This is where He sees me. This is where I see Him.When the waves start to get bigger out of nowhere, where will I turn? To growth, where I may be uncomfortable, or to lean on what I think is “better” for me?
God showed me that the beats of my heart that thought all this movement in my life was brokenness, was really sprouts of beauty that Him and I have been watering for a while, and are now ready to shine. Strength. Trust. Faith. All these cute words we like to throw around when having a relationship with God, but really when it comes down to it, in order to grow, there may be growing pains and discomfort but THAT is where the biggest blessings lay. Right over that hump, and where God embraces you in the places and spaces that you have no vision or strength to take one more step.
You may be in a harsh season, a dry season, or an “I feel alone” season — but from what I have learned throughout this walk is that it is up to us how deeply we want to know the goodness our God holds for us. God only wants to bless us. God only wants us to receive his never-ending gifts and love, eliminating the expectation that I owe Him anything because of His good character.
God has put you in this space for your brokenness to become the closest you’ve ever been with Him. Take the step of courage. Pray that extra prayer. Go where He leads you, even if it doesn’t make sense (because it won’t).
Where in your life has God called you to step out so he can bless you?
Here are little sparkles of Jesus that God gave me through this season that I want you to know and keep with you for whatever season you are walking through:
Let God be everything that you can’t be. He isn’t expecting you to come to Him with it all figured out. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need a God. He wants you to come to Him as the whole you – your weakest pieces and all. He wants you to lean into Him and trust that He will use you for a life to rejoice in (Psalm 16: 10-11).
Put yourself in a position to listen. Sometimes we get so caught up with searching for His answers, that we don’t allow Him to speak because we aren’t in a place to receive. We aren’t in a place to listen to his calling for us in this season. So sit and allow the Holy Spirit to churn your heart, eyes, and ears, to receive what the Lord has for you (1 Samuel 3:10-11).
Trust and [submit] to God. It’s one thing to trust and know that our God is good, but are you submitting all that is deep in your heart to the Lord? Are you bringing your brokenness to light so God can work in you? Allow Him to search your heart and bring about whatever you need to submit to Him in order for him to begin working. Submit your heart so you can grow to see who God is crafting you to be!
You are washed clean.
You are loved. And loved for ALL of you.
You have power in your brokenness that may be a blessing in disguise.
Much aloha,
Pelemarie Buika
http://pelebuika.theworldrace.org/
