Broken Still Chosenਨਮੂਨਾ

You can heal and grow through grief and weakness

I hear over and over again when I am meeting with people how broken they feel. Brokenness shows up in so many ways: illness, addiction, divorce, infertility, victims of abuse, accidental death or injury. I’ve met with families whose dad is in prison, a mom who is bipolar, children with cognitive challenges in school. The list of broken goes on and on.

What is your brokenness today? It might not be as obvious as some of these other examples. Maybe you feel trapped in an unfulfilling career or stuck in a less-than-happy marriage. Or maybe it’s even more subtle than that. Are you wrestling with forgiveness or feelings of guilt about not being more patient? Whatever your brokenness is, you can gain a sense of comfort in knowing you’re not alone. Each of us is broken in one way or another.

And each level of brokenness brings with it a sense of grief. I have had to grieve the loss of the use of my muscles. As a forty-eight-year-old husband and father, I can no longer even stand by myself. I need help with the most basic of daily tasks. Of course, I grieve that I can’t help my daughter load her car as she heads off to college and as I watch my wife take out the trash every day. So, yes, I know grief. I’m pretty sure you do too.

What gives me continued encouragement is that God understands my weakness and my grief. Yours too. Jesus can empathize with our weaknesses and our temptations (Hebrews 4:15). He promises His grace for us in our weakness. Not only that, but we are actually strong in our weakness because of Christ’s power in us (2 Corinthians 12:9). “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10 NIV).

It's hard right now, I know. We’re broken. We’re grieving. Yet we draw our strength from Him. And with His strength comes promised joy (Psalm 30:5, Luke 6:21). That’s something worth looking forward to.