On June 3rd, something major came up. My children and I were going to visit out of town family. When we walked outside we discovered the sliding door window of our van had been shattered. Four days later, my husband was mowing the lawn and accidentally slung a rock into the drivers door window of his car. Have you ever had one of those weeks?
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| Our broken van window |
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| Our broken car window |
But this is not a story of how God met our needs, although He did. Both windows were replaced much cheaper than we had expected. The story I want to tell is what God taught me from the broken glass.
The first thing we thought when we saw the broken window was "How did that happen?". Many possible sources came to mind. A passing car, the neighbor's lawnmower, some really mean person could have taken a baseball bat to it, someone even thought the heat could have caused it to break. No one really knew. And it's the same with our lives. Sometimes we get broken. The brokenness could have come from anywhere. Someone intentionally or accidentally caused us pain, our own bad decisions put us in a state of stress, etc. The source of our broken hearts doesn't really matter. What matters is that we are broken and it hurts.
So we are broken, now what do we do? We try to fix it of course! With my window I did the only thing I could do; I taped plastic bags over it. I was pretty proud of the job I did with such inferior equipment too. It started raining as I was finishing up but my plastic held. The next day a bigger storm came and blew my little band-aid away. And don't we do the same things in our lives? Some turn to alcohol, drugs, food, work or some other form of busyness. We also use anger and avoidance to patch up the injury. But while they may hold for a little while, like the plastic on my busted window, eventually a bigger storm will blow through our lives and the jagged edges of our pain will be exposed again.
While I surveyed the damage of my window God showed me something about the glass. There was apparently meaning in where it fell. Some of the glass fell inside the van, some onto the ground, and some just hung onto the window frame. The glass on the inside represented those hurts that no one sees. The pain that we hide, the shame that affects who we are. The glass that stayed attached was just hanging in ugly shards and it represented the physical affect of our brokenness. The swollen eyes from crying, the pale face and dark circles under the eyes from sleepless nights. In the glass on the ground I saw how our pain can affect others. When we hurt we may pull away from others, neglect relationship or we may lash out in anger and frustration.
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| Glass on the ground |
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| Glass still clinging to the frame |
So what happens next? With my window the first thing I did was clear the glass that was still hanging on. In our lives this would be washing our face, putting on makeup, making ourselves look less broken.
Next, I picked up what I could from the ground. We try to make amends to those we may have hurt through our bitterness. We attempt to rejoin the world and do the best we can.
The third thing that happened with the van was cleaning out the glass that had spilled on the inside. This was the last thing I did with my van but in our lives, the inside is the first thing we should tend to. If we don't get what is going on in our hearts cleaned up first, then all the makeup and apologizes in the world will mean nothing.
My husband had to help me with this part of the clean up. With his help the work was much easier and more efficient. The two things that God reminded me of during this process was;
1) Only He (God) can clean up the brokenness in our hearts. He is the only one who can find all the pieces and take them away. But we must release it all to Him. Psalm 34:18 says "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are crushed." Reach out, take His hand and let Him rescue you. He will guide you through the pain and into His healing love.
2) We can't do it alone. In the case of my van, there was just too much glass; I had to have help. In
our lives, sometimes there is just too much pain. God can and will rescue us but He never meant for us to go through life alone. He places people in our lives to walk with us. This is our family, friends and especially our Church family. Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend." We smooth the rough edges from each other's lives. We help bear each other's burdens. James 5:16 "...confess to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" Amazing things happen when we pray for each other. Don't keep it to yourself, talk to a Christian friend and allow them to pray for your healing.With my husband's help, the window got patched up much better than I could have done on my own. And it held until we were able to replace it.
Once we let God start cleaning us up and we partner with a strong believer who is committed to helping us, we will begin to experience more protection and healing. Then one day we realize the buzzing of the wind against the plastic is gone and a brand new window is in it's place!
We still remember the brokenness and all the pain and frustration it caused, but it's healed. We are whole! Now we are the ones who are stronger and have experience with broken windows. We can be the one someone leans on, the one showing God's love and being a conduit of grace and healing, to be used by God to lead others to freedom in Christ!
This is what God wants us to do. He blesses us so we can bless others. He frees us so He can use us to free others. We are His plan to reach the world. Isn't it wonderful that through our healing others can be healed?
God loves to redeem our brokenness for His ultimate glory but also for what we find in Genesis 50:20. "You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position to save the lives of many people."
God will bring you though your pain to a place where He can save the lives of many through you.
