Broken or Blessing?

Last night in our midweek service, a sermon was preached that really pricked my heart. Brother Ed Loney preached out of Mark 6:31-44. This is one account of Jesus feeding the five-thousand. The entire sermon was great, but two statements that he made toward the end of the sermon really made me think. The first was, “The true blessing was not the blessing, but the breaking.” This was referring to verse 41, where Jesus blesses the five loaves and two fish, then breaks them. If Jesus had not broken the loaves to distribute them, those five-thousand men, not counting women and children, would not have been blessed with a meal.

               The second statement was “A refusal to be broken is a refusal to be blessed.” How many times have I begged God not to brake me? How many blessings have I missed because I was not willing to be broken? Even still, what blessings have I missed due to my incorrect response to being broken?

               God must have wanted to emphasize this theme of brokenness to me today as well. As I was driving home from work, a ladies’ program was broadcasting on the local Christian radio station. The woman that was speaking (I do not know her name) was speaking on suffering and brokenness. She stated that so many times our broken periods, the awful things that happen to us, are really God’s blessings in disguise. God breaks us because He loves us. She gave the example of her and her husband’s struggle with infertility. She could not understand why God would not allow her to bear a biological child. She then told a story of a little girl in China, who was born in deplorable conditions, unwanted and rejected by her biological parents. That little girl is now her daughter. If God had not caused both of them to be broken, they would not have the great blessing of being mother and daughter.

               So what blessings have I received from my brokenness? God broke me in 2010 when He allowed me to develop type 1 diabetes. Because of this diagnosis, my plans, dreams, hopes of going to Papua New Guinea as a missionary nurse/linguist were crushed. I was broken- more broken than I had ever been. My whole reason for existing had been taken from me. My blessings? Learning to trust God, even when He does not make sense to me. Being weak, having to rely on insulin to keep me alive, allows Christ to be strong through me and teaches me that I am nothing without Him. God broke me again at the beginning of this year when He allowed me to experience two miscarriages. I am still discovering the blessings from this brokenness. I feel some new brokenness each time I see a pregnancy announcement, a baby belly picture, a gender reveal. When I feel this brokenness, I have a choice. I can choose to focus on being broken, choose to focus on what I am missing, what has been taken away from me; or I can choose to focus on what I can gain by trusting God and allowing Him to lead and teach me through this brokenness.

               “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”    -Psalm 34:18