Brokenness

I have to admit, I really love clothes and shoes. Sometimes I spend a ridiculous amount of time just looking at clothes online. I think it really started when I had to be in my wheelchair, because clothes just don't fit the same when you're sitting down all the time. But then it turned into using clothes and shoes to make me feel less broken. I was always searching for that perfect outfit that could somehow fix my outward brokenness, or at least make it less painful. Ultimately, I ended up with a closet full of clothes and shoes that I hardly wore, since I stay home most of the time. And all that outward stuff never came close to fixing my broken heart.

I realized that I was going about this all wrong. The Lord showed me that He is the only One that can fix my brokenness. The beautiful thing about Jesus is that He looks past what is on the outside, and sees the hidden places of my heart. He does not reject my broken heart (Psalm 51:17), or my broken body.

God delights in healing our brokenness. Psalm 34:18 says that "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed." In my life, the sweetest brokenness is always in my surrender. And every single time I come to Jesus, surrendering my brokenness, He pours out His precious healing in my heart. In the same way a muscle needs to be broken down before it can become stronger, my heart and my faith are made stronger when I surrender all of my sorrow and brokenness to Jesus.

I will probably always love clothes and shoes. But I love my Lord more. Instead of searching for that "perfect thing," I have been using my time searching His Word. He promises that when we search for Him with our whole hearts, He will be found by us (Jeremiah 29:13). Today, as I sit in my chair, my body doesn't seem so broken, because my heart has been made whole by my loving Savior.