Brokenness

Our sermon today was about being broken people and letting God use us just as we were, broken, rather than waiting for us to become more refined, closer to perfection.  I've been thinking about that quite a bit today.  I am seeing my own brokenness.  As I was then and as I am now.

In all honesty, during the sermon, I was distracted.  I was thinking about something else, a recent event that had wriggled its way under my skin and was irritating me.  I kept going over it in my mind and it brought me to tears more than once.  I had been reminded of a crime that I committed in my youth.  Too many times to count.  Oh, it wasn't a crime against the legal system but against another human being, which is, in my estimation, far worse.

You see when you commit a crime against the legal system, you are brought before a judge and punished accordingly.  If you are a juvenile, the crime will not follow you for the rest of your life.  It remains hidden.  If you continue to commit crimes once you are old enough to be accountable, those crimes can follow you.

When you commit a crime against another human being, regardless of your age, you run the very real risk of having that sin thrown back in your face time and time again, even if it was committed when you were young and stupid.

So I sat there today, silent tears falling, reliving a stupid sin that I committed over and over as a child, which has not been forgotten by the victim of my sin.  It is hard to live with that.  Despite my apologies for the way I acted so many years ago, that sin lives on in the life of the person I hurt.  I do not know how or why it has stayed with that person.  Perhaps it is their own insecurity.  Perhaps it is a strong sense of justice.  Perhaps it is something else known only to God.  I just can't say.

But I realized this afternoon that the sermon I should have paid more attention to was telling me I have been forgiven, and I do have a loving Father who doesn't want to throw my past sin in my face.  When I recognize my own failures and bring them before Him, He wipes the slate clean, sets me on my feet with a loving embrace, and watches me go.  When I see where I've been and where I am now, and when I thank Him for his gentle teaching, I see Him beaming with pride that I finally got it.

I'm still learning, but I'm so thankful to not be in the beginner's class anymore.  And I'm so thankful for a Father who doesn't show me test scores from the early grades so He can remind me of my stupid, juvenile mistakes.

He takes my brokenness and makes it something beautiful.  Forgiven.  Restored.

Brokenness Aside

by All Sons and Daughters

Will your grace run out

If I let you down 

‘Cause I am a sinner 

If its not one thing its another

You are a Savior 

And you take brokenness aside

And make it beautiful, beautiful