"If only God would give me different circumstances." No one understands your circumstances but God, and He has given you the fighting chance to prove you can be more than conqueror in all these things. Let God lift you out of the broken place, out of the bedraggled place.
~ Oswald Chambers
We all have broken places, don't we?
Scars from hurts given to us.
Scars from hurts we've given to others.
Memories that haunt us, reminding us who has failed us... and how we've failed, too, all on our own.
The chinks in our armor that mock us in the mirror, telling us, day-after-day-after-day: "You don't measure up."
And sometimes, when we become Christians, we figure that those scars will disappear, that the "old injury" won't bother us, that our armor will become whole and strong, so that we can fight our way through life with ease and jollity.
But they don't disappear, do they?
Actually, they seem to widen, stick out even more, reinterating that even as Christians, we still have broken places. Emptiness. Holes of darkness that it seems no light will pierce.
It's enough to make us despair, isn't it?
It's enough to make me despair - that's for sure.
And then, one day, years ago now, shedding tears over my Bible - admitting to God that I was utterly incapable of living this life He'd given as it ought to be lived - He spoke to me.
And the verse that I read was this:
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
I can't adequately express what that meant to me, other than this:
Christ's grace was sufficient for me - He would be my Sufficiency - He would pour His ability into me - because - His strength would be perfected - made complete - in my weakness - in my inability - in my incapability.
I realized - and what a humbling realization! - with the sureness of it being seared into my heart that my emptiness was good - my inability was good - my brokenness was good...
Because...
His strength can only be shown in weak people, people who know that they are weak, people who need His strength.
Because...
His grace could repair all the broken places, could fill me utterly because I was empty of myself - of my own abilities, of my own "wholeness."
When we're whole, shiny, and brimming with everything good, we don't think we need Him. We still do, of course, but we don't think so. We're so easily self-satisfied.
He wants broken hearts, broken lives, empty people whom He can fill with Himself.
I hope that you enjoy it, friends. May God use reading it to minister to your heart as writing it did mine.
Grace and peace,
Alicia
