Most of us have favorite movies that we can quote at the drop of a hat. Having raised five sons, I have been bombarded by movie quotes for a lifetime, which thank you so much, I can not wipe from my memory. THIS one from Home Alone is one of MY favorites: “Hey! I’m not afraid anymore!”
I had a major ‘aha!’ moment today where I felt like the boy in that movie when he realized he was NOT scared anymore. He opened the front door to his home, facing his adversaries out there hidden in the bushes, and he yelled out HEY! HEY is the word we use to make sure whatever we say NEXT, is heard! And then NEXT- he proclaimed that he was not afraid anymore! It was as if he just realized it – all the lights came on and he instantly KNEW all fear was gone! He was still just a boy home alone; still had enemies out there in the bushes BUT he changed on the inside!

I thought I was maybe the first person God couldn’t fix. I thought the things that happened to me when I was young had rearranged my life and changed my destiny, or altered it. I thought I was damaged goods. I thought I was less than. I thought my broken places were so full of slivers that each piece could never be recovered. I thought my legacy would be my brokenness. Sometimes it IS. In our brokenness and in our pain, there is a birthing of great purpose and great inspiration for those along side of us.
The thing about being broken in any form is that you get used to it. You are so busy trying to glue yourself back together or find that broken piece you lost about 53 miles back – or find the ax head buried in the muddy river, that you don’t notice that you have still kept going at all costs – dried out glue, lost parts, buried treasures and all. Really? That looks pretty impressive to me! I totally respect and admire those who just keep moving forward. If they can’t sprint, they walk. If they can’t walk, they crawl. If they can’t crawl, they drag themselves with dirty fingernails and skinned knees all the way to the finish line.
We can be broken because of many instances – someone can drop us, figuratively or literally. Ever hear of Mephibosheth? He was Jonathan’s son and the grandson of King Saul. When he was only five years old his nurse dropped him, and it made him a cripple for life. First of all, his brokenness was NOT his fault; it came through the error of another – and unintentional error. Keep that in mind. It just happened. Sometimes we are broken due to the journey of this life, much like a boat battered and barraged out in a terrible strong storm. Sometimes we are broken because the things or the circumstances or the people who held us together, fell apart. Many times brokenness is just something that happens because we live in a fallen world. We seem to just break apart. This is a really hard blow to the human soul.
Then there is that country song by Rascal Flatts – “God bless the broken road that led me straight to you.” Just what do we really feel about that? God BLESS the broken road? The BROKEN one? Is that an oxymoron? Actually, it’s a truth. There are blessings on the broken road. I would never presume to have all the answers and I would hope not to offer lame cliches. I can only speak from the view of my own broken part of the road. I have traveled far enough and long enough to understand that things and circumstances and people are the OUTSIDE forces affecting my life – but it is my own inner self that can choose to keep going against all odds and all outside forces. The broken road has made me a stronger and better version of ME!
No amount of brokenness can snuff out the inner light of WHO I am.
Being broken can take us to places of beauty, in all actuality. We get to see what we are truly made of – who we truly are – we get to see the good parts rise up – we get to conquer giants we never thought we could take down – we get to see our crippled parts get us from A to Z no matter how long it took – we get to see our boats still floating on top of the storm surges – we get to witness finding missing pieces and seeing them fit back together – we get to find the joy of restoration – we get to yell HEY at the top of our lungs when we realize we came in FIRST place in our OWN race.
“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5)
So today I’m swinging open the front door to my life, facing my adversaries hidden out there in the bushes, and yelling out – Hey! I’m NOT broken anymore!