Broken

Sometimes God has to break us. Break us from old or unhealthy habits, break relationships and friendships, break connections we thought were inseverable or break our stubbornness (often with pain -physical or emotional.) He does not break us to hurt us, but to grow our character. I have always been a do-er, a fixer if you will! I see an issue and I just jump right in – often headfirst! No looking before I leap – no time to reflect; I just dig my heels in and Do! Do whatever it takes- push my feelings and thoughts aside – there’s work to be done! Busyness is who I am or who I was. I wore it like a badge; it felt good to know my friends and family knew I was a motivator. I was often called on to help out with whatever task needed to be done. They knew when I showed up the task would be accomplished no matter what!

I thought I would take time and slow down after my sister’s cancer battle – That was the plan! Only I discovered slowing down was not an option for me – I didn’t know how. God chose to show me how and certainly Not the way I would have liked. He broke me! My ability to do has come to a halt, which is very uncharacteristic of me. I was still trying to fill the voids with busyness even after I promised God and myself that I would slow down. I remember my sister saying once that if I didn’t have chronic back pain, I’d probably be unstoppable. I told her then, I knew it was something God used to keep me humble. Little did I know at the time that 20-year pain was only a precursor of the main event.

Going through some old writings I found a personal journal entry from February 2022. A month after my sister’s oncologist said, ‘we’ve ran the race as best we could – there is nothing more I can do.’ Also, turns out it was 5 months before God healed her and 7 months before my ‘incident’ that has seemingly taken me out the rat race. I felt broken at the time, but that was emotional – something I’ve mastered at putting in a box to continue my busyness. Over the last two years, God has chosen to slowly Break me Physically! This is something I don’t know how to commandeer, but I have learned more about resilience than I ever dreamed. However, I’m discovering God is using this physical brokenness to heal the emotional brokenness I’ve fought my whole life. God doesn’t break us to hurt us, but to Heal us!