Beautiful Brokenness

You know that rotten feeling in the pit of your stomach when you have just been hit with some disappointing news?

Yeah I know that feeling all too well.

Ugh.

It feels like a punch in the gut. I guess it’s part of life.

In the last few years I have faced situations that have brought me to my breaking point.

I went through a divorce that meant losing a chunk of family that I loved dearly. It meant picking up the pieces of my life and starting over in an unfamiliar place.

It meant losing the support of a community that simply didn’t know the whole story and never will.

It meant uprooting my business and trying to maintain some clients while I searched for a little stability.

It meant admitting my countless failures and shortcomings as a wife and normal human being.

I can write this now without getting too teary eyed but there was a time when the thought of letting all those people down would bring me to my knees.

If there is one thing that cuts me to the core, it’s letting someone else down. Let alone two families, an entire community of people surrounding us, my clients and all the young girls I gave lessons too or mentored in some way.

But I realized something through all of this.

I was mostly crushed because I was buried beneath the weight of seeking other people’s approval.

I knew in my heart of hearts the truth of the situation and what was best for me to do. And my decision to stick with that was the first of many promises I have kept to myself since.

When you are no longer a slave to the approval of others, you find the power and dignity to do the right thing in all kinds of situations.

When you are faced with the decision to do the right thing, or the thing that makes someone happy, you can stand your ground and make a sound decision.

I’m not a perfect person, not even close. But I serve a perfect, loving God that promises me that nothing can separate me from His love. And that is the only approval I need to carry me through this lifetime and into the next.

Being vulnerable on this level doesn’t come easy and probably not without backlash of some sort. But it’s part of my story that hopefully will help you find your way in yours.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭3:17-21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

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