I used to live under the illusion that I was shielded from brokenness. Sure, I was a sinner and had acknowledged that and believed in Jesus and been forgiven, but --thank God-- I was not from a "broken family."
I lived under that illusion until my family broke.
It was not divorce between my parents, thankfully, but conflict and acrimony and confusion and bitterness appeared and I had no idea what to do with them. And it happened because of me. I fell in love with and came to admire and trust a man. And my father did not. Conflict is a sure sign of brokenness.
And brokenness began to trail after me like a tail. It appeared in my inability to fall asleep at night, worrying and wondering what I had done wrong and what I could do to fix the brokenness between Baba and me. It appeared in my ready tears, whenever a friend asked seriously what was going on. It appeared in the deep confusion of my heart. The story is too complicated for five minutes to tell.
I despaired of fixing the situation, and instead I broke out of it and married my husband. Condemnation sometimes says I did the wrong thing, that the holy thing would have been to commit myself to obeying and fixing no matter the cost to myself and my sweetheart, even though that might have broken our relationship.
I taste the confusion again, just by thinking about it. So easily the wounds reappear.
The mornings in the days before my wedding I would sit at my hotel window, with a view of the Organ mountains and the hospital where I was born, and pray. And I felt the assurance of my heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's love. That amidst my sin and the perplexing confusing mess of brokenness, he loved me. My marriage would not be cursed because of the brokenness it emerged out of. My marriage might have its own forms of brokenness. There is no guarantee against it. But God was surrounding me and my husband with his own Father's blessing.
My Father's love is the raft on that can carry me through the valley of the shadow of death and sin. It is the blanket that hugged me when I writhed on my bed in tears. It is the only thing in life that can never break.
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| Not the most lovely photo of the Organs, but that tall building is the hospital where I was born so that's why I chose it. |
I can relate. I have lost family and friends because I chose to marry a man that they did not like, and because I chose to stand by my husband and honor my marriage vows when Satan pushed us into one trial after another. I hope and pray that your brokenness heals one day.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reading and your response. I know that God hasn't finished the story between me and my dad yet. It is important for me to hold onto hope, and the final assurance that because he also is a believer in Jesus, at least someday when we stand before our Lord we will be reconciled again. Thanks for praying for me.
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