If You’re Broken Too…

I won’t keep you…it’s late but for most of us our thoughts have a short shelf life, so I’m getting it out now while its fresh.

I’m not always OK.  Here on my blog I share some of my vulnerable self.  But even here, I manage my vulnerable.  I want you to know I’m real, that I’m screwed up, but at the same time I don’t want you to think any less of me.  Right?  Some amount of mess is relate-able…endearing even.  But aren’t there things that all of us have done that would make someone else’s mouth drop just a little bit?  Yeah.  I don’t like handing those details out like candy.

Maybe I manage for my own sake too.  I grew up trying so hard to never make a mistake, and that trying followed me right into adulthood.  I tell myself “nobody’s perfect” and that I so fall short of my idea of glory, let alone God’s.  But then those moments of complete and utter brokenness in my life take me by surprise almost.  How could I screw up?

I was trying so hard.  I was trying so hard not to disappoint him, her, them.  I was trying so hard to be a good mom.  I was trying so hard not to be late, not to spend too much, not to say the wrong thing.  I intended so well, but didn’t follow through.  But I was trying so hard, and this guilt just follows me around no matter what…sometimes because I think I messed up…but worse are the times I know for a fact I face planted.  Dropped the ball.  Intentionally cut someone down.  Yelled so loud.  Absolutely failed.

Why am I just. so. human?

Yes, I’m still being vague.  Because the truth is, a blog can inspire but we need blood and flesh relationships for vulnerability, not a screen.  Odds are, if you’ve allowed me to see you unravel, I know you’re a safe place to unravel myself.  And if you’ve loved me, frayed ends and all…I know there’s hope in the mess somewhere. 

And love is what I…we…so desperately need.

At the end of the day, the falling and the mess and the guilt and the pain…it’s covered.  Love has covered a multitude of sin, and the God who loves me chose me at the worst of my broken.  When it looked like I might never become anything more than shattered glass on the floor.  And maybe He doesn’t actually expect me to become perfect, but to become surrendered to that love.  Maybe those unraveling moments are where I’m meant to experience the depths of God’s love..because I’m aware of my deepest failing. need. The vast chasm that His love spans to reach me.

Perhaps at once the most beautiful and terrifying thing is letting go of my belief that I CAN be good enough and letting myself be loved anyway.

And letting others be loved that way too.

Don’t look around at the sea of people in your church or your school or your workplace or your homeschool co-op or your playdate group and think that you’re the unraveliest.  You’re not alone, and unless we tell each other from time to time how broken we are, we’ll walk a guilty isolated road.  Be vulnerable with someone…embrace being human…and may you know somehow that you are simply loved anyway.