A lot of people talk about their moods with the metaphor, “my glass is half-full.”
Well, because of my struggle with depression, most days my glass is at best half-empty.
When it gets really bad, my glass is all broken up. There’s no water in sight.
And sometimes, well-meaning friends try to help me. They come at me with glue and duct tape and spackle. It the person is a Christian, she might say “maybe there is sin in your life that you need to confess.” “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” “How can you be sad when the victory is yours?”
This is how they think my glass should look:
But through the years of going up and down with depression, I’ve learned that the really beautiful parts of me have come to be through my brokenness. God doesn’t hand me a parfait cup and tell me to get my act together, to try harder, to get outside and take a walk in an effort to feel better.
No.
When I’m all broken up, he holds me.
He quietly shows me that when I am broken, I am most beautiful to him.
Some would say that I am a glass half-empty kind of girl.
It’s true. I am.
And even though there are days my body is racked with pain without reason, even though some days everyone around me sees the sun, and I am in the dead of night, God crouches down next to me and whispers in my ear: this is how I made you. You are beautiful to me, empty, broken glass and all.
Christ is building his kingdom with the broken things of earth. People desire only the strong, successful, victorious, and unbroken things in life to build their kingdoms, but God is the God of the unsuccessful – the God of those who have failed. Heaven is being filled with earth’s broken lives, and there is no “bruised reed” (Isa. 42:3) that Christ cannot take and restore to a glorious place of blessing and beauty. He can take a life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it a harp whose music will be total praise. He can lift earth’s saddest failure up to heaven’s glory. -J. R. Miller
Christ is building his kingdom with the broken things of earth.
This is how I made you. You are beautiful to me, empty, broken glass and all.
25 Responses
This is beautiful! A very wise teacher once said “If it’s not broken, break it”. So, I wonder, why do we think that we have to hold it all together in order to please Jesus? It is our brokenness that He desires to use.
It is frustrating that we all think we have pretend and hide our struggles. I love your teacher’s saying. Agree. Totally.
I, too, know the brokenness of depression. Isn’t it interesting that in the shards God is smoothing and polishing as He works in us. As we work through the pain, we learn better how to lean on Him & glorify Him, until we become the sea glass in which He builds His kingdom. It doesn’t make it easy as we suffer through the pain that depression brings but ultimately it IS for His glory. I find a great deal of comfort knowing His work in me never ends.
I do too, Amy. Thank you for sharing your wise words.
Love this!! I have struggled with depression and know that feeling of being empty and broken all too well.
And I know that I haven’t felt beautiful or loved or treasured during those times.
I’m glad that you wrote this and listed that verse. It’s very reassuring to read and I hope that lots of people who need to hear this message will be blessed by it.
Thank you Paula. Love and prayers.
So great to tweet chat with you last night! It wasn’t nearly long enough! I’d like to follow your blog but couldn’t find a button. My blog is restorationheart.blogspot.com .
Ann
Thanks Ann. You can follow through network blogs or through entering your email address. I’ll check out your blog :). Thanks!
Absolutely beautiful, and absolutely true. Thank you for this, Gillian!
Thanks for the comment, Katie :).
Beautiful. We Christians can b so afraid of ‘unanswered’ prayer and unmet longings and pain that we cannot sit w someone in pain.
Sitting with someone in the pain, yes, that is a huge problem with all of us. Hugs, friend.
beautiful pics. both photo and words. I empathize and relate. many times I have been told to just “buck up” so to speak, when really I just needed to be in my pain. Thank you for the reminder that God does indeed use the broken and sees us as beautiful. J
Thank you, Jayne! Appreciate your comment :).
I wrote this during one of the most difficult times in my life, but God took a bad situation and worked it for my good. I learned a lot through it. I hope you all enjoy it.
LEFT WITHOUT A SOUND:
Lord, we once had something so special,
It was absolutely amazing to see,
Like walking through a garden that was only meant for me.
Every day was Heaven,
It was like a dream come true,
You gave me my hearts desire,
It had to come from you.
For I’d never had a person, who’d loved me quite so sweet,
Or had a love for anyone else like what You’d given me,
For this absolutely amazing man You’d brought into my life,
Then later you blessed me, when I became his wife.
What more could I have asked for,
What more could I receive,
That could even compare to the kind of love,
That You had brought to me.
Then something suddenly happened,
Went so terribly wrong,
To the love that we once had,
A love that once was strong.
The bitterness moved in,
Like a cruel and laughing storm,
To take away the beauty,
From my garden so once adorn.
It replaced it with a darkness,
A dead and wilting sea,
Of flowers that have died and now bring pain to me.
He quickly became critical, cold, harsh, and cruel, how could this be possible,
How could it be true?
My once best friend who stole my heart would turn away from You,
Let the bitterness in, let the darkness through.
It came in like a flood,
Like an angry crashing sea,
Was it just a joke from Satan,
So he could laugh and say to me?
“What a fool you’ve been,
To believe it could be true,
To have a love so wonderful,
Something you’d never knew.
Walking in that dream world will always be the pit,
That will trap you every time,
And where you’ll continue to sit.
For the foolish dreams you have,
And where hope once abound,
Will always be destroyed,
And left without a sound
Copyright © 2004 Karen Sawyer
Written: 5/31/2004
Beautiful Karen. Thank you for sharing :).
Thank you for putting a visual behind how I feel!
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