Brokenness and the Blessings of Realism and Joy

“We are all wonderful, beautiful wrecks. That’s what connects us—that we’re broken, all beautifully imperfect.”

— EMILIO ESTEVEZ

There is the wonder-filled presence of majesty in the fact of our brokenness. The more we magnify the grace that holds us up, eyes raised to the sky in awe, the more we know it’s okay to be the way we are.

We are mistaken, fearful, foolish, frustrated, fatigued, ignorant and arrogant people—and many more. We are more the same than we are different.

And besides all this God loves us.

Think about that for a moment: God loves us. The verb in that sentence, “loves,” commands our attention. One single word tells us graphically and never more understatedly what God does and what God has done, from eternity to eternity; eternally.

God loves us. Despite our junk, all the vain propriety we bring to life, and the hurts we either deny or make much of, God loves us.

God may not want us wallowing in our brokenness, but we do ourselves a service when we regularly reach into such a fact of being, because it highlights just how magnificent God’s grace is that he loves us.

We are, again, most similar—by the facts of our commonalities of failing.

But that isn’t the best news, not by far!

Freedom from a Thing that Promised Bondage

We could be really forgiven for thinking that sowing into our brokenness would depress us and take us into a netherland far from home.

But precisely the reverse occurs. The more we establish space for ourselves in being acceptably broken, the more we realise how wonderful it is when we achieve something. We start from a low base and are easily satisfied. Our expectations are right-sized. We thank God more willingly for the simple things.

These ideas of life are the marrying of realism with joy: realism because we are suddenly not afraid of the truth—indeed, we are glorying in it—and joy because we faint with glee at just how good God is that he, an utterly holy God, loves us.

Realism and joy. Does life get any better? And it comes from a truth that sinks so many; the source of our despair. It’s a great thing that we’re so fallible.

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Only God could use our brokenness and turn it into the blessings of realism and joy. God loves us—unconditionally. Accepting our brokenness welcomes this truth without fear: realism. Our joy abounds that nothing we can do would make God love us any less.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.