Broken.

That one word perfectly describes my life right now. 

Nothing is intact - not my heart, not my spirit, not my dreams, not my hopes- everything is broken. And while there is so much pain, while almost every awful thing that could have happened in this situation has happened, I feel peace. 

I certainly pray that nothing else happens - my heart has been trampled on quite enough, thank you. I feel as battered and bruised as a mere mortal would have felt in the glass chamber that Thor tumbles down to earth in from the hovercraft in the Avengers. (Excuse my interjection of nerdiness). And I’m ready for rest. And healing. And restoration. And resurrection!

But bruises take time to heal, and they hurt for a long time after the initial insult. My entire relationship with the man that I love and whom I thought loved me has quite literally, crashed and burned. And I’m just left here, poking around in the ruins and the rubble trying to salvage the parts of me that I can find again.

But my God is faithful. He has changed me so much in the six weeks that I’ve been walking through this, and even though I have been let down so terribly and so tragically, God has held me up. He’s taking all of the broken, bent, battered pieces of my heart and thrusting them deeper into the fire, the way that a glassblower artfully forms a masterpiece from something ugly and unrefined. Never before have I been so acutely aware of my ugliness, but again I say - my God is so faithful! My ugliness and brokenness doesn’t deter Him at all! I have declared my heart to be His and He is lifting me up, moment by moment, so sweetly and in so much truth. 

This is such a painful road. I would never wish this agony on anyone - not even, dare I say it, the one who caused it in me. God is pouring His grace over my heart and over my life, and in doing so, He is teaching me so much about my own calling to shower others with that grace. It’s a lesson that I’ve been praying He would teach me for so long, and if I would have known the way He was going to choose to teach it to me I probably never would have asked! (Haha.) But the fact that the Lord is still drawing me close to Him, that He’s still molding me and refining me and shaping me to be just the way He made me to be, gives me such joy! A year and a half of the most important relationship I’ve ever had has been thrown by the wayside, discarded and unwanted, and yet I feel purpose. I feel God working His plan in and all around me, and I am so hopeful for what is to come. 

God truly is astounding - that He would take something so hopeless, so impossible, so full of despair, and redeem it into something beautiful and hopeful and life-giving. I am so thankful to serve a God who loves me so deeply. 

"To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for His own glory." -- Isaiah 61:3, NLT