Brokenness.

I got to talk to a really dear friend this weekend. The Lord has used her mightily in my life, encouraging me to Christlikeness. And I pray I do the same for her. We discussed life plans – her next year overseas, everything that’s changed for me lately, etc. She’s had a rough time there lately; life is changing and relationships are changing and fatigue is setting in. And life has been hard for me, too; I’ve had three four jobs in the last year and a half, relationships are changing, and there’s a lot of uncertainty.

But tonight, my Pastor spent time preaching about Jesus’ hands. He has reaching, healing hands. But at one point, I turned to Luke 9:16-17, which says, “And taking the five loaves and the two fish, [Jesus] looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And they all ate and where satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.”

This is the question that was posed: How many things am I reluctant to put in God’s hands, for fear He’ll break them? Relationships? The desires of my heart? My sweet GAs? My job situation? My finances? My time and energy?

In the verses above, Jesus took pieces of whole bread, which seemed to be good and useful for eating. But He broke them, blessed them, and multiplied them. The bread was broken for Good, for the Good of those who were present that day.

The thing is, sometimes God has to break my spirit so that I yield to His. But everything He seemingly breaks, He always blesses and multiplies.

I had a relationship break a few months ago. I take that back – it was broken long before; a few months ago, it was severed. My spirit was broken…crushed. But God blessed my brokenness: The Spirit interceded when my words failed; Christ began my Husband, and I His bride; and God covered me with His wings, comforting me as a weaned child with his mother. And after blessing, oh how the Lord multiplied! My joy multiplied, as my did the time I could spend with Him, the love I had for my GAs, and my ability to dance freely in the song He sings over me. My spirit broke, but I chose to yield to His – and through that, I was blessed and multiplied.

So it’s okay to feel broken. It’s okay to not know what’s happening next, how that relationship will turn out, or what it means to rest. That’s okay. In fact, it’s in those moments that God takes our Brokenness, blesses it, and multiplies it into something better than what we had before. We are blessed through that process, and so are others – more than we can count.