Back in April a precious friend asked me if I would pray about writing a faith based article for a local Texas magazine that reaches over 80,000 people. Well God prompted me to write “Gracefully Broken” and it was published in this months addition of Living Magazine.
I cannot begin to tell you how blessed, thankful and humbled I feel right now. God used the storm I was trekking through to orchestrate this article. Oh how I am praying God uses this in profound and healing ways, transforming the hearts of all those who read it, bringing them into a deeper relationship with HIM.
Please pray along with me. Y’all know that the deepest desires of my heart is for all to come to know the freedom and lavishing love of Jesus.
“Gracefully Broken”
Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is near the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Have you ever been faced with life altering, defining moments when you felt as though you we are drowning in the treacherous waters of life and you desperately needed to hear the voice of God? Have you experienced a moment in time when your soul was so shattered and broken you felt there was no way you could ever be whole again? Times you have felt ashamed, unworthy, unlovable and just not OK?
I do not know what storms you are being faced with in life during this season but what I do know is this. Whether some of us are deep within a valley or some are on a spiritual high, we are all broken, we are all on a healing journey and we are all in desperate need of Jesus. We need to come to a place where we are ok not to be ok. This doesn’t mean you are weak, less than or that you don’t have a strong relationship with the Lord. What it means is that you are human and there are days the wind gets knocked out of us and we fall to our knees in desperation. If you didn’t struggle, you wouldn’t be you. David, Jesus, all the heroines of the bible struggled and cried out to God when they were overwhelmed with sadness and anguish. It’s ok to be broken, it’s ok to cry out to God when you feel He is not near or answering your prayers and it’s ok not to be ok. But it’s in those days that we are not OK, that we need to choose to have joy in the Lord, not happiness, because there are many days we do not come into alignment with happiness, but we choose joy in the Lord because we know the hope that can only be found in Him.
His word, His truths and His promises bring healing and restoration to our broken souls. As we inhale in His faithfulness, we are able to soar high on His wings as we breathe in His healing and purifying shalom peace. His word promises He will never to leave us for forsake us. It might not look the way you wanted it to look or it may not have happened in your time frame but He ALWAYS shows up. I get it, sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith and endure the storms but He commands us in Scripture to praise Him in and through ALL things. Even when it hurts, we praise Him. Even when we are blinded by our circumstances, we praise Him. Even when you feel you are drowning or in a fierce fire, we praise Him. Why? Because when we praise Him our eyes get off ourselves and become fixed on Him. It shifts our focus from defeat to glory. He in all consuming loving God who hears the deep cries from the cellars of our souls and He disperses His angels time and time again, reminding us of who we are and who HE has called us to be. He continuously shines His majestic light upon the darkest areas of our journey, guiding and reminding us that nothing is impossible through Christ Jesus.
I encourage you today, no matter where you are in your journey, to allow Him to embrace you, hold you, and lavish you with His undeniable LOVE. Allow Him to take you deeper, to clip your wings and to restore what has been scared and broken inside. I have had my walls up, I have shut Him out during devastating seasons but I have also welcomed Him in so I could experience unity and freedom in Him. Once you have that encounter, that transforming moment where He meets you and pours His anointed, supernatural, unfailing love into your soul, you will stand in awe and in reverence of just how magnificent He is. It’s simply blissful.