Love My Brokenness?
After my most recent post about healing and brokenness, a good friend asked me if i am willing to love my brokenness.
That’s a pretty tough question. i don’t currently love it, but perhaps one day i will.
i know what he’s getting at. Unless i love it and embrace it, i am at risk of pride and self reliance.
More than that, if i don’t love my brokenness i cannot love the grace, mercy, forgiveness, restoration, and healing i have experienced.
And that which i am yet to experience.
So i am searching for a way into an experience with brokenness that, rather than crushes me, leads me to humility and then on to authentic strength.
i feel a bit like Lucy going back to the wardrobe searching for access to Narnia only to find that this time the portal is not open. i am fairly certain i don’t know much about how to love my brokenness.
The discomfort i feel, even as i write this, is the tension between a defeatist victim mentality (i’m just so broken; i am a loser) and sober-minded humility that — while engaged in a full acceptance of my brokenness — actually allows me to experience a growing, legitimate strength.
It seems the mystery and conundrum that Paul is talking about in Gal. 2:20 applies directly here.
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
The mystery of what Paul is talking about here is profound — at least to me it is.
How, exactly, does this work? i am certain that many people who have been following Jesus as long as i have — more than 30 years — probably have already mastered this and wonder why i am still working on this one.
But i am.
This is significant in the journey to life and freedom from compulsive sexual behavior because it was my reliance on the flesh that got me into my pornography habit in the first place.
It was my attempt to make life work for me on my own terms, and my refusal to allow Christ to live in me fully that kept feeding my pornography use.
And my recovery efforts could easily wind up being just as fleshly. If i am staying clean out of pride and self reliance, i am missing something. i am an active participant in my recovery process because everyday i make meaningful choices toward — or away from — healing.
But at the same time, it’s not my strength that’s going to heal me.
i wonder if learning to love my brokenness means learning to love the surrender. Maybe it means learning to love the daily crucifying of my flesh inherent in Gal. 2:20.
Bringing my flesh to the cross and bringing the cross to my flesh; this is my path to life, healing, freedom, and authentic strength (Luke 9:23; Gal. 6:14).
Only then can i be alive in Christ (Eph. 2:5), at which point i can hear from God who i truly am as He defines me. From there i can live aligned with His heart and my purpose; restored in a way that only happens when the Kingdom of God is present.
After all, Jesus has taught us to pray: “Thy kingdom come.”
The kingdom is all about healing the broken and restoring all that has been lost or stolen. Perhaps i can love my brokenness because it allows me entrance into the kingdom.
And when i am in the kingdom — when i call out “thy kingdom come” — sin, brokenness, and shame are swallowed by healing that is real.
Intentional Warriors 
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