Wednesday 18 May 2011

Brokenness...

Yesterday my daughter and I worked outside, did some weeding, filled some flower pots with dirt getting ready to plant and then decided to mow the lawn.  Usually that’s the boy’s job but the grass was getting so long because of all the rain we’ve had, that we decided we’d give them a break and do it for them.  Besides the weather was cool and the bugs weren’t so bad…or so we thought. 

Let me tell you about our lawn mowers, they’re all push mowers and all hand me downs, three in all, well there were four but the youngest son tore one a part to use the engine for something else.  Anyway, if one doesn’t work or is out of gas you can grab another.  Or three people could go at the lawn at once, you know the saying “many hands make light work.”  My husband says that once the kids are out of the house he’ll get a rider.  No riding for these kids…they’re pushing their way right out of the nest ;-)

I was using the bigger more powerful mower so it was my job to do the section of lawn that was six inches long and super thick.  It was pretty tough pushing my machine through that lush grass and then I realized why, the little wheels on my mower were bending outwards which was making it much tougher to push.  But I continued to push forward even though it was hard.  And you know those bugs that I said weren’t so bad…well they decided that while I was mowing would be a wonderful time to come out and visit me, but I persevered regardless of being chased and bitten and despite my out-turned wheels that were making my mowing more difficult. 


See that out-turned wheel, the cause of my difficulties ;-)

When you’re out mowing the lawn it gives you opportunity to think because you’re kind of in your own little world with all that noise, well usually you are but I had a number of flying tag-a-longs invading mine but I was still able to think.

I was thinking about my wheel on my mower that was pretty much broken and so I started thinking about broken things and how in our lives there is brokenness in each one of us and how despite that, as God’s children He will use our brokenness for His glory.  For the most part we all like to be whole and to look good to others and to look like we have life all together, but often times that’s not reality.  We all struggle with some form of brokenness, imperfections and failures.



This past weekend we had a conference at our Church called Building a Community of Hope.  We had Serena Woods, a woman from Missouri, come and share her story.  She had a very broken childhood, terrible things were done to her and yet God saved her and she surrendered her life to Him and things were going well for nine years but then she stumbled and fell.  She had an affair with the husband of a friend and got pregnant.  She looked at her life and realized that up until that point character wise she had lived a pretty good life, yes horrible things had happened in her childhood but it wasn’t a wrong that she had done, these things had been done to her.  But this time she had done wrong, she had failed and failed horribly and her Christian community pushed her away, they had been hurt horribly in this whole situation too and didn’t know what to do with it.  


She walked away feeling like there was no forgiveness for this sin that she had committed, so she turned to Scripture and no where could she find that there was a measurement on God’s offer of grace in our lives.  Grace was free for all who would accept it despite any sin that was committed.  So she held onto that and out of that came healing and acceptance and a realization that grace is for sinners, it is not the healthy that need a doctor and it is not the sinless that need grace.  Out of this has poured a ministry where she shares her failure but in that talks of how she found God’s amazing grace.  He used her brokenness/her failure to make her who she is today and to spread the message of God’s grace to a world who so desperately needs Him. 


When we surrender our lives to Jesus, He uses our weaknesses, imperfections, failures and brokenness to speak His love and grace to us and those around us.  We may look at these as deficiencies in our lives and that’s all we see, but God sees opportunity to show His transforming power. 





 27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God. 30 God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. 31 Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.” 1Corinthians 1:27-31


If we let Him, God will use our brokenness for His glory and bring us wholeness and new life.


We see our imperfections as something negative, God sees them as something He can use to display His beauty. 


http://www.graceisforsinners.com/  Serena Woods website.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxi4QOx8XIw  Serena shares her story.






2 comments:

  1. I can never hear this too much!

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  2. I agree with Betty. Excellent post and reminders about what grace is! I find that I need a dose of grace every single day. Lord, help me. :) Love the photos you used for this post. The dof is superb! Great job, Tina!

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