I am definitely not the inventor of that phrase but it’s so very true.  It’s a lesson that has taken me way into my adult years to learn where it applies to myself, but I have no trouble seeing the beautiful masterpieces other self-proclaimed broken people color with their lives. More specifically, one of my favorite things to do is to help others see the masterpieces they have painted or are still capable of painting through their brokenness as they cling to God.  They literally paint the survival guide for someone going through the same thing.  While I see this beauty in others, I often have a tough time recognizing it in myself.  Just the other day I encouraged a friend who was struggling with his brokenness with the same words of this title.  But 2 weeks later while I was having a pity party, I protested to my husband about my uselessness because I’m broken!

Sidenote

* Ya’ll should probably pray for him because while we are all saints as believers in Christ (1Corinth 1:2) this man is like a hyper saint, just saying.

This is not something our boys have ever struggled with. They’ve learned this lesson and demonstrated it to me on more than one occasion, two that still bring tears to my eyes.  We had been to the zoo and on a rare splurge each of the kids selected an overpriced animal from the gift shop.  They were young, Tristan, our youngest, was probably 5 or 6 years old.  Later in the year we discovered one of the dogs had used one of the back legs of T’s warthog as a chew toy and it was badly mangled.  While headed on my way to throw him in the trash, Tristan took off to the bathroom asking if we had any band aids. Instead of throwing him out, Tristan’s first thought was to heal or bandage what was broken.  When he realized I was about throw the wart hog away he was incredulous and took him from my hands with tears in his eyes as he said, “if I was wounded would you just throw me out?” …..and the Oscar goes to….TRISTAN. However, Tristan is now 16 and we still have that warthog with medical tape on his back leg which I dutifully applied through tears! 

As I sit here unpacking Christmas ornaments, I came across what has become the mascot for our tree and truthfully my life.  Frist of all, I am not allowed to do our main tree as a fancy themed tree.  I did this one year and was so proud of myself and even had a few people comment about how it looked like it belonged to a department store. My kids HATED it, they prefer our crazy ornaments collected throughout the years that hold special memories and sentimental value. Deep down I agree with them. And so it is that the first ornament I unpacked this year would be the glass dinosaur with the band aid on his bum where his tail should be.  Tristan went through a dinosaur stage as every little boy does and had received a treasured dino ornament for Christmas one year.  Not wanting a repeat of the warthog guilt as even without a leg that warthog still dutifully snuggles, when we discovered the dino’s tail had broken off, I quickly set to work healing what was broken.  That dino still looks beautiful on the tree and under our skilled hands we are able to place him in positions to shine without ever really noticing he’s broken.

This is our relationship with God the Father. We are all broken by our sin and the sufferings of this world wrought by ours and others sin (Rom 3:23).  But in Christ we are new creations (2Corinthians 5:17). He starts a work in us that will be completed on the day Christ Jesus returns (Phil 1:6).  Healing and restoration is a process for anyone, but we have a supernatural healer working on us who promises to stay right by our sides regardless of the path he calls us to walk (Psalm 23, Psalm 18.33).  We have a supernatural strength inside us even in our weakness for when we are weak, Christ’s “grace is sufficient for us and His power is made perfect in weakness” (2Corinth 12:9).  When Paul wrote Philippians 4:13  he wasn’t saying he could lift an SUV through Christ who strengthens him, or pass a test, win a game, get a promotion etc.  He was talking about persevering through any season of life and any circumstance because of the power of Christ inside him, being content and joyful in seemingly unjoyful circumstances like prison and poverty, for Paul, because of our hope in our Savior Jesus Christ. When we are tethered to Jesus, regardless of our brokenness and hurt, be it physical or emotional we are broken crayons that can very much still color! We are that warthog with the bandaged leg and the dino with the bandaged bum, still useful to our Creator who is more than capable of healing our brokenness!