"Whenever you're broken...you're free"

Emily, James, and I led a small activity on brokenness for our family group on Monday.

While we were deciding what to do for our activity, we came to the conclusion that defining brokenness would be a good idea. However, we were all suprised with what the actual definition of it was. Whenever I thought of being broken, I thought of wanting to immediately be fixed...wanting to be as far away from being broken as possible. Going through our VSP Notebook, we found a page that lists characteristics of broken and unbroken people. Some characterisitics of broken people were: overwhelmed with sense of their own spiritual need, compassionate, surrender control, humbled with how much they have to learn, willing to be open/transparent with others, take the initiative to be reconciled, and walks in the light. Once we read that list, we all decided that being broken did not sound as horrible as we all had thought it did. Once you're broken, you realize you're need for the Lord...you realize you cannot do it on your own.

For our activity, we passed out the list to everyone in our family, and told them to write down some of their unbrokenness. The whole point of the activity was to break what they considered to be unbroken. Once they wrote everything down, we went outside to where we had made a cross. One at a time, people shared what was unbroken about their lives. When they finished, they nailed the piece of paper to the cross and offered it up to God in hopes that He would break them. It was great to listen to everyone open up about their struggles. We were able to pray with them, connect with them, and just talk with them about what they were going through.

I don't know how many of you were involved with helping me find a song on brokenness, but I finally found one. This song goes along PERFECTLY with what we talked about on Women's Weekend. Its all about opeing up and not hiding anything because we all are broken and we all need a savior.

Broken - Steven Curtis Chapman (Look it up, take a listen, and let me know what you think)

After that, I went and talked with Jessica Bott (one of the project directors here) about some things that were going on. We had a really nice (and long) talk about how God was working in my life and the value that I have in His name. She compared me to a butterfly...When a butterfly goes into a cocoon it has to fight its way out in order to survive. If we cut the cocooon open before its ready to come out, the butterfly will die. Fighting and opening up the cocoon gives the butterfly the strength it needs in order to survive. If we help it out, it will lack the strength that it needs. Jessica told me that right now God is teaching me to fight and grow. If anyone else were to do this for me, then I would lack the strength that God wants me to have. He's just preparing me for the things He has in store for my future.

On that note, I leave you with a verse.

Psalm 34: 18 - The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.