Brokenness is a place. It is a state of being. It is a reality that is unmistaken, shaped by forces at times that are uncontrollable. Brokenness can be brought on by the onslaught of disease, accident, genetic anomaly, and uncertain causes that science and mankind to this day still do not fully understand. Brokenness is also shaped by our own actions or inactions. Brokenness can be brought on by our own decisions and choices that send our lives, our bodies, and even our relationships tumbling towards destruction and collapse. Addictions, affairs, abusive behaviors, and the failure to meet the needs of those entrusted to you are just a few of the ways that brokenness can come into your life by your own hands. Brokenness at times comes at the hands of others. It steals into your life at a moment’s notice without warning. The headlines are full everyday of this brokenness. We are terribly familiar as a society with murder, molestation, rape, and countless other senseless acts perpetrated with a vengeance on the innocence of others seemingly without any sort of purpose and end. It makes no sense. It leaves us reeling asking why? Our minds rage against a world and often a God that would allow this sort of reality to enter our lives. The answers are often nonexistent, empty of any sort of understanding and even hope for redemption or healing. Brokenness is often not an isolated moment. It is something that enters a person’s life and consumes it. It engulfs your reality and redefines everything. Brokenness has the capacity to penetrate every corner of your life, your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, the very relationships that you reach out to for some sort of stability. It pierces the very core of your existence plunging its icy hands deep into any resolve and belief that one may have, shaking, tearing, and destroying any since of stability. Brokenness is a place that is shared by countless thousands and millions of people around our world. It is something that is happening as you read these words. Our humanity is groaning at this very moment bearing the building weight of broken lives, shattered dreams, and senseless acts of violence. Brokenness is personal. Likely you yourself or someone very near to you are in this very place. Walking a path that is unmistakably painful, fearful, and possibly feeling as if you have no hope, no way to see through this storm. If this is your reality, if brokenness is your point of reference, then I welcome you along side. Brokenness is a journey that seems empty, void of any sort of security, a path that is cut off from everyone and everything that holds any sort of hope. It is a journey that seems to isolate us from everything around us, building a callous around our lives and our very hearts. If this is the place you are in right now, the journey that you face, your point of reference, I share it with you. I myself as I write these very words are walking a similar path of brokenness and uncertainty. I share the fear, the loss, the shattering reality that brokenness brings to life. I walk the same path with a future that seems out of reach, one that just months ago I could envision with great detail and hope. But now it is darkened by a great uncertainty. I peer ahead to see a glimpse of something, anything to hold on to but am left with nothing. Brokenness is my point of reference. I stand in the storm, raging around me, the waves threatening to overtake me, sweep the very life and breath I breathe away forever. My path is no different than yours. It may go by a different name or be brought on by other situations that seem far distant and unlike your reality, but I fully believe that brokenness of any cause places us eye to eye with an understanding that transcends specific details, life histories, even cultural and language barriers. No matter how different we are, brokenness is a point of reference anyone at any age can identify with. Tears are universal. Pain is universal. Loss is universal. Despite the differences that exist within our humanity, the moment brokenness intersects with our lives it acts as a great leveler, bringing us all to the same plane of existence. Where if we could lift our heads long enough out of the dim of our pain and fear we would see a world around us that is in that same place, that same reality, a broken hurting world, just as frightened as you and I are at this moment. It is true. I have looked. I have seen the brokenness around me; I have spoken to countless people who share this burden. I have seen their fear, heard their stories, and shared my own. In a since though most who are broken have never met, we exist in an unlikely brotherhood and sisterhood. We have been thrust into a shared existence linking us in a way that is difficult to understand. It is not a badge of honor, it often seems more like a curse, but it is something that we unmistakably share. There is a strange bond that emerges, one that builds with time if the destructive forces are able to be held at bay. It is true. I am here in this place right now with you and many more that surround us every day. The ranks of the broken are swelling daily. Our numbers grow. It is an unfortunate reality, but it is the truth or our existence, of our broken and fallen world. These words that I write are real. They are an expression of my journey and an unmistaken feeling that there is hope that lies amidst the broken and shattered existence that so many people share. Hope is often found in the most unlikely places. As life crumbles around us and the things that seemed so strong and stable collapse out of reach, hope rises. Out of the ashes it emerges in a manner that is often unrecognizable. Our entire point of reference has shifted, so too has our understanding of hope and the redemption that our minds and bodies ache to grasp a hold of. The words I write may be raw at times; they may signal difficulties and a reality that is not necessarily easy. They may not be what many who are broken long for. There is no easy answer to our brokenness. There is no simple incantation or positive thought process that can breach the gap that has emerged in our lives. Brokenness is complex, and so is healing. Our understanding of how things are to be resolved in our lives is shaped by many confusing and often contradicting ideas and beliefs. Many times as we read the countless resources that exist and are counseled by professionals and those that are around us, it leaves us with more questions than answers. At times the “well meaning advice of others” can turn the wrong way. Often these moments have the capacity to seep into our brokenness with a stinging effect that can suffocate us. This journey of brokenness is confusing and the process of healing is sometimes wrought with more dangerous pitfalls than the very thing that shattered our existence and plunged us into this place we are trying and hoping to make our way out of. Though this complexity exists, and the path is uncertain, Hope remains. Hope is a thread that exists in our lives. It has been there since the day we took our first breaths. It has existed alongside us as we built our lives. It exists now in the shattered reality of brokenness. Though we are broken, hope remains strong. In our weakness Hope rises as an unbroken thread stretching out into our uncertain future, beckoning us to follow and explore the potential that lies dormant and hidden by our pain. Hope waits. Ready for us to reach out and grasp its firm hand. The question is not if hope exists within our brokenness. The real question is if we are willing and able to allow ourselves to stretch out of our brokenness, our preconceived attitudes, and self imposed assumptions and grasp hold of the only hope that exists, the only hope for our brokenness, our humanity and very existence. There is hope and healing and a future no matter what our circumstances. It is true. I have seen it. There are many others that have shared in it as well and testify of its existence and power and potential. Lift your eyes out of the brokenness and glimpse it, it is before you. You are not alone.
You are not without HOPE.
