Breaking But Not Broken

This weekend I was driving to my sister and brother-in-law's house for a birthday celebration. Due to issues with roads from recent flooding, I was forced to take the back roads. I came to this realization only at finding myself at a detour that would take me further away from their house. So, I doubled back to go a different way.  I enjoy driving, especially through the country, and especially during autumn. I love the changing colors, the crispness of the air, and the peace of the outdoors.


It was during this drive that I encountered a song that ended up getting stuck on repeat, well selected to repeat. Driving through the backwoods, I was in a country music mood and stumbled across the song Break On Me by Keith Urban. The thing about being real and authentic and someone who lives in the depths, is that sometimes things hit you in ways you weren't expecting or prepared for. That is what happened with this song. One moment, I am enjoying a leisurely drive through the country smiling at the scenery and the next, I am gripping the wheel as tears drop into my lap.


The song goes like this...

There'll be days your heart don't wanna beat
You pray more than you breathe
And you just wanna fall to pieces
And nights, those two AM calls
Where dreams become walls
And you just need a break

Break on me

Shatter like glass
Come apart in my hands
Take as long as it takes, girl
Break on me
Put your head on my chest
Let me help you forget
When your heart needs to break
Just break on me

There'll be times when someone you know
Becomes someone you knew
But you'd do anything to change it
And words you wanna take back
But you know you can't
When the page just won't turn
And it still hurts

Break on me

For a while now, I have felt like my life is continuously breaking. Just when one area calms down or gets smoothed out, another falls to pieces. I have struggled with balancing the breaking with the reality that my life is to serve and lead others. It has been difficult to finally realize that both can happen at the same time; they are not mutually exclusive.

If I am to be completely open and honest, I have struggled because it feels like there is no one who can truly handle the weight if I were to release everything and just break. I am blessed with friends and family who support me and also me to release some things. Also, it is hard to trust others with your broken pieces because not everyone who asks how you are actually care; some just want to be in the business enough to talk about you or put you down to others.

Mostly, I do not like to burden others, so many things I keep to myself and between myself and God. It is hard to feel like you are holding broken glass in your hands so that it doesn't shatter someone else's life, only to realize that by holding on to the broken pieces, your hands are being shredded in the process. 

The person I could break on fully is gone from this place to a place with no pain, sorrow, or suffering. My dad was someone who I knew could handle my brokenness and still remind me of the strength I possessed even in that brokenness. Then, I had to learn the hard way that not every man who says they are going to be there for you in life and wants a future with you, will  always be able to make good on that statement - yet again no one to break on and just be me with. Then to think of the tiredness I feel from holding my broken pieces even as others are showering me with theirs. (Side note - I am grateful that God has put me in the lives of people who trust me enough to bring me their trials and victories for prayer and hope. I pray that no matter how hard things get in this life, that God would continue to always send me people who need encouragement, love, support, prayer, and hope.)

All of those thoughts ran through my mind and an incomprehensible speed and they left me at a loss for words. All I could do was listen to the song, let the tears fall from my eyes as I blinked, and drive on. As the song replayed, I could feel God beginning to speak to my heart, saying:

"Baby girl. You can break. You can break on me.

I know you. I formed you.

I see you.

I love you.

You are breaking, BUT YOU ARE NOT BROKEN.

It is in this breaking, that I am transforming you

from this season to the next.

There is pain and heartache. I don't like to see you hurting,

but know that I am with you in this process.

I don't leave you to struggle alone.

I am piecing you together in a new way that has never been seen before.

I am piecing you together for a purpose that has not yet been accomplished.

Trust me. Remain in me.

I am good and I am for your good,

even when it does not feel good.

It's okay to break. Give me the pieces.

Stop holding them. Release them to me.

I am using them in a new way.

Trust me. I've got you."

It is not easy to share this, as it is intensely personal. However, I believe that there are others who are doing what I was. Others who are holding their shattered pieces with hands being torn apart. Others who are breaking on people who can't handle their weight or don't truly care. Others who are breaking internally and hiding it by jumping from thing to thing or relationship to relationship or job to job. Others who are breaking by hiding it because they feel that since they are in leadership that they always have to "have it all together."

Just stop. It is okay to be breaking --- YOU ARE NOT BROKEN. Let the pieces go because the same words God spoke to me are true for you. This is the time of transformation. Trust Him with all the pieces and know that what He is creating in you is going to be more amazing that anything you could do with yourself.