Today I decided to walk a mile in the rain. I wasn’t being melodramatic, I just felt cooped up after being at my desk all morning. I looked out the window and realized that it was just a light sprinkle and decided to go for it. The church has these prayer paths that are mapped out with specific things to pray for, so I grabbed my umbrella and set out for a walk.
As I walked I prayed. I started praying for the prayer requests that I had helped type that morning and selfishly drifted to myself and my own problems. I honestly feel so broken lately. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss my child. Something happened to my heart…to me when that happened. I am not the same. I am completely a broken person. I don’t think that’s bad, it just is. I am not looking for sympathy, nor to I walk around in tears every day…so please know my heart. It just changed me. It changed the way I see others in tragedy. It changed how I see their chaos. I get it. I have known Jesus for such a long time, that I forgot what it felt like to feel lost. I get what it’s like to trust God for my next steps. To hope that I am walking in the right direction. To feel adrift.
So I walked in the rain and prayed for my brokenness and for those who are broken around me. I prayed for my broken nation. My broken heart. My broken friends.
I started to read some scriptures tonight and God led me straight to a scripture about broken things. The more I looked in the word, the more broken things I saw. I noticed the broken jar of oil in Mark 14:3 that the woman used to anoint the feet of Jesus. I thought about the broken bread that Christ used to feed 5000 in Matthew 14:20. Most importantly I thought about the broken body who took upon itself the sins of the world. My God doesn’t discard broken things, but he finds amazing purpose in them. So as it says in Psalms 51:17, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you…” I give Him my brokenness because he finds it beautiful.
Beauty From Ashes 