Dry and Cracked

Have you ever felt broken, cracked, beyond repair?  If one more thing piles on, you may collapse and shatter. This is an overwhelming feeling.  At times like this, I find myself quoting the psalmist when he said, “I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2. In moments like this, all I can pray is I know God exists, and He is good.  He has a plan, and He is faithful to complete it. 

A while ago, I realized that I felt like a dry, broken well on my morning walk.  I felt cracked, and at the same time, wrinkled.  I felt broken and crumpled.  I asked God to fill me with living water.  To plump up my pores, seal the cracks and nourish the wrinkles into smoothness.  I am not talking physically, but my soul.  I am a dry, broken, and thirsty land that needs Jesus.  He is the living water, and He is all I need.  My daughter has a saying on her bedroom wall that says, “if all you have is God, then you have all you need.”  Such fantastic truth in that short sentence.  I have to drink of Him and let Him change me, fill me, nourish me, and heal me.  I must spend time with Him daily so that I don’t get dehydrated and start to crack.

My choices formed some cracks, and I now live with the consequences of those choices.  I also have to accept that God has forgiven me, and I need to forgive myself. These cracks are tough to overcome.  Relationships have also broken me. Some of these fractures occurred consciously by someone, while others were unintentional. Either way, the hurt was real and left scars and brokenness in the wake.  Sadly, time does not heal all wounds completely.  These hurts have left deep scars that, from time to time, rear their ugly head and remind me of past offenses or mistakes. I have to consciously decide to forgive, put things permanently in the past and move on.

My aunt told me of a Japanese art form called Kintsugi.  The idea is to take broken pottery and repair it with a mixture of glue and gold dust.  This process makes the object beautiful and more valuable in its restored condition.  She sent me pictures of some pieces; they were marvelous, and the beauty was magnificent.  As I was thinking about these pictures, I realized that this is how our life can be.  We can repair cracks in broken things, but brokenness in us is harder to put back together.

Along with this art form, I thought about how cracks let the light shine out from the center.  A broken candle holder came to mind.  If I repair it, it will never be perfect again.  I will see the flaws and where they did not go completely back together.  However, when I put a lit candle in it, the light that shines out is beautiful and fills the room with light.  I think about my life this way.  I need to let the light of the Holy Spirit shine out through all my cracks.  Stop regretting that I am not perfect, therefore feeling unloved or worthless.  I need to see that I have worth and my light can make a beautiful difference in a dark world.  I need to look at the cracks as good things.  I may be broken, but I still have value.  When God puts me back together, the new creation is more valuable. Much like the artist who creates something beautiful out of broken crockery and gold dust, God makes something beautiful out of our brokenness if we allow Him.  I can stay cracked and broken, or I can allow God to repair me by receiving His love and allowing His light to shine through me.  One of the most remarkable aspects of God’s character is His capacity to love flawed human beings.  Once I accept His Son, Jesus, as Savior, God looks upon me through the lens of His Son’s righteousness.  This gift of grace is what gives me value and worth, not the mistakes and heartaches that I think make up my worth.

There are several ways that we can try to mend cracks.  For the believer, the best way is to go to God and ask for help, strength, renewal, and healing. God is faithful and ever-present.  He will help us.  He has helped me by sending a friend to speak the truth into a situation or love me.  Other times I have been reading a devotional, and I read a verse or passage.  I may have read that same verse a hundred times before, but on that day, it is like God put it into the Bible just for me.  Sometimes I have to go before God and be still, listen for His voice.  I know for sure that whenever I feel like I did on that day, going to God always lifts my heart, and renewal begins. Through Christ, reconciliation in relationships is also possible.  The worst thing I can do is try to fix the crack on my own.  Whatever I do to repair myself will undoubtedly come apart and reveal the gap is still there or may have even grown.  I can try to fill myself with worldly things, new clothes, cars, etc., but eventually, I will see that it is not very meaningful and does not fulfill long term.  Solomon came to the same conclusion in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11.  The only one or thing that truly satisfies is my relationship with God.

I can not cover it up and pretend everything is perfect.  While I was walking today, I thought about this blog post, and a song came on that spoke to me.  Look at the lyrics for Maybe it’s OK by We are Messenger.  The refrain says, “Maybe it’s OK if I’m not OK ‘cause the one who holds the world is holding onto me.  Maybe it’s alright if I’m not alright ‘cause the one who holds the stars is holding my whole life.” It is okay to be broken sometimes.  What matters is what we do in those times and who we turn to.  

I now realize that something must fill the cracks.  Unsealed cracks will lead to more damage as the pain spreads from my mind to my heart.  Look at a cracked sidewalk or driveway to understand this.  When cracks occur, grass or weeds may grow in them. The only way to take care of this problem is to spray weed killer or repair the break.  I need the blood of Jesus to clean out and seal the gaps in my life.  If I do not do this, something else, perhaps bitterness, envy, or anger, will grow out of whatever created the crack.  God wants to fill that void with His Spirit, so light shines, distorted at times, but still, light shining in the darkness.

This dry, cracked, porous, and wrinkled soul needs the soul-quenching power of Jesus.  I want to have a powerful significant life for my Savior.  To do that, I have to allow Jesus to saturate my life.  My journey has been slow and filled with heartaches.  I internalize these heartaches, which further dry me out and chip away at me.  I need to give everything over to God and allow the healing to take place in my heart.  As His living water fills me, His word is like an IV going directly into me. I am sustained, encouraged, and nourished, which gives me a renewed life.  This renewal gives me vitality and hope. Although I am fighting internal and external forces every day, I can fight the feeling of brokenness in my life by staying connected closely to God.  He loves His children and is more than able to sustain and heal me through all my brokenness and cracks so that He receives all the glory and honor from the light shining inside me.  Hebrews 12:2 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfector of our faith.  No better place to place our attention.

It has been almost a year since I wrote that original journal entry, and as I look back on this time, I see that I no longer feel broken; chipped some days but not broken.  I know I have a long way to go, but I see that God met me in my brokenness and spoke truth into it.  He healed it with His grace and mercy and still is patient with me, so I will see Him when I feel broken.  He was calling me into a deeper relationship with Him.  I see now that, along with my broken state, I was also lacking something.  I was missing that deep daily dependence that came as I cried out to Him to heal me.

Praise God He is faithful!