A Broken Me

 Do you ever feel alone?  That’s not a text a woman expects to see flash across her smart phone screen at two in the afternoon. Especially when the fingers that typed it are the ones she’s held onto for over twelve years.  Alone?  Really? Why would he send me something like this? Just as any wife would do, I had always encouraged communication, but alone? How dare he make me feel as if I had failed at making him feel wanted! I know the opposite to be true! I have tried my best to keep him posted on goings on, asked his opinions, and respected his decisions! Hadn't I? Alone? Although that word echoed through my head for a matter of minutes, the reality is that just as I shouldn't have to apologize for feeling angry and hurt after reading those words, he shouldn't have to apologize for typing them.

I starred at my phone screen for what seemed like hours. All I wanted to do was fall to the kitchen floor. I didn't understand why a simple question would hit me so incredibly hard. I think it was because in my spirit I knew what that lone question meant for our marriage. All the distance and struggles of the last several years were about to finally be brought to the surface. They were finally going to be exposed, and the “things” I had hoped were only in my imagination or would take care of themselves were hitting me head on. For the first time in my life, my Christian bubble had been popped. No. Blown to pieces. The idea of marriage I had dreamed of as a young girl was unraveling from both ends, and nothing I could do would stop it. Truths long hidden, on both our parts, were brought to light and God was all I had to cling to. A pale face, carpet-burned knees, and tear-stained pillows seemed to be all that was left of my life. All that was left of me. It hurt to breathe; it killed me to live. By the grace of God, my boys slowly gave me the motivation I needed to at least attempt to put one foot In front of the other.

Find me here at Your feet again

Everything I am, reaching out, I surrender

Come sweep me up in Your love again

And my soul will danceOn the wings of forever-Hillsong United

 The months following the text that changed our lives forever were excruciating. I had never cried so much,  and know I had certainly never spent more time with God. Within a matter of weeks, a final decision was made and the boys and I moved to Texas to be near my family. I sat almost lifeless one night after we had been in Texas for a few days. I cried out to God. I was determined to fight for our marriage, but I still refused to surrender it fully to Him. As if my having a small amount of control over it would help the outcome. About a month after my heart cry, I was finally able to completely surrender our marriage over to God. In that moment, He released me from the union that had started with a love story of two young kids at a local rodeo event. It was hard and it was painful, but in that moment I felt peace like I had never experienced.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. -Psalm 147:3

The death of a marriage is more of an emotional thing than I ever realized. I feel like, as Christians, we have grown so numb to the idea of divorce that we pretend it never happens, it never could happen to us, or we just judge those who experience it. Today’s society seems to accept it as just another unfortunate outcome with no real long term effects or need to prevent it. Let me tell you something…it hurts. It’s a loss. It’s certainly not something you just “get over” and it completely changes a person forever! 

For me, it broke me. The fear of losing the person I loved most in the world, the fear of hurting my boys, the fear of failure…it all happened in one fell swoop. I was broken. There were so many pieces of me, that any attempt to put them back together only caused more brokenness. As I cried out to my Heavenly Father in the middle of my living room floor one night, He showed me that I could never successfully place my broken pieces back together. I HAD TO surrender every piece to Him. Let me tell you, He sustained me, held me, healed me, and helped me through the worst season of my life. He is beyond faithful. Although I can speak of His faithfulness during my journey, I must tell you that I am still healing. I wake up in so much agony some mornings, the thought of breathing makes me cringe. I find myself in social settings so unsettled that I want to run and hide in my car. I stay up late into the night, because the thought of the pain that tomorrow could bring becomes unbearable. The level of anxiety, worthlessness, and fear that I have allowed Satan to bombard me with is ridiculous. I have spent the last year fighting off fiery arrow after fiery arrow. My heart knows the Truth. My heart knows that nothing formed against me shall stand. But when I choose to stand in my brokenness on my own strength, those promises seem small. No more.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. -Psalm 34:18

As you read my daily posts, I hope you’ll see that all this…ALL THIS healing and surrender MUST start with our brokenness. It MUST start with our realizing that we cannot do life on our own and were never meant to. It MUST start with a willing and broken heart coming to Him to be fixed and healed. Admitting, confessing, and understanding our NEED for our Almighty God.  Joyce Meyer told a story once using the images of two broken clay pots. If you take a flashlight and shine its light into the one with no cracks, the light inevitably has no where to go. It stays hidden. But if you take the same flashlight and shine it into the broken clay pot, the light shines completely through. It shines so bright and in so many directions that there is no mistaking its light. That’s who I want to be. I want to be that broken clay jar. I want to come and fall at the feet of Jesus, completely surrendered, and allow His light to shine through me.

So this is where it starts for me. I hope it starts here for you, too. Come to Him just as you are. Not as who you are supposed to be, who you would like to be, or who you dreamed you’d be. Come as you. In Hope. I’m just a girl. No different than you. Just a broken girl. But now, I’m determined to live victorious and free from the bondage of the “things” that have broken me. I’m determined to be, not just a girl broken into a million pieces, but a girl…surrendered.

And God’s says

I’m gonna turn it into something different

I’m gonna turn it into something good

I’m gonna take all the broken pieces

And make something beautiful like only I could

So put it all in the hands of the Father

Give it up, give it all over to

The only one who can turn it into

Something beautiful

Something really beautiful-Steven Curtis Chapman

So this is where it starts for me. I hope it starts here for you, too. Come to Him just as you are. Not as who you are supposed to be, who you would like to be, or who you dreamed you’d be. Come as you. In Hope. I’m just a girl. No different than you. Just a broken girl. But now, I’m determined to live victorious and free from the bondage of the “things” that have broken me. I’m determined to be, not just a girl broken into a million pieces, but a girl…surrendered.

                 All to Jesus I surrender. 

                All to Him I freely give. 

               I will ever love and trust Him. 

               In His presence daily live.