What God Can Do With a Broken <3

To me, he was simply beautiful. He knew more about me than I’d ever care to share with anyone—just enough to impale me with. I used to carry a hunting knife with me (just in case), but with him I felt like maybe I didn’t have a need for it. We’d been family friends since I was twelve years old and he was eleven, when he was a little bitty thing and I towered over him, but now times were different. Now we stood at the same height, and he grew stronger. We had grown out of our fledgling stage and were flowering into young adults. One summer, we spent a day together…then a week…then almost three months nearly attached at the hip. He’d come home from university and become my vacation. My eyes were filled with starry wonder just getting beside him.

I could laugh exceedingly with him about anything and escape the reality of a tormented life; we both wore darkness but escaped with one another again and again. Whether it was driving through the night making “podcasts” (rambling on the Voice Note app and forgetting it was on), partaking in petty vandalism, planning out when next to wear matching outfits, or getting so twisted we couldn’t stand, we made our “fun”. He paralleled my crazy and we only ever hyped each other up—with him there was never a dull moment. He invited me to stay with him for a few days to see a concert of my favorite rap group at the time and just get away after I went through a season of life that hurt me so badly, I became numb to the world. That meant a lot to me though it was only after a year or so that I could express just how much in words. Tipsily, I’d call him saying, “Maaaaaaan, I wish you were here! Dude, these people are BORING!” when out with my girl friends because in my mind, these chicks just didn’t know how to party. There was an element of thinly veiled danger about him that I couldn’t deny, but I felt I needed that because if he were on my side, I figured he’d protect me. Our moms would ask if we were dating and we’d share it with one another with a grin not saying much more about it, but to me he was my very best friend.

Then, it got complicated. I was silly enough to think that this fun could turn into something solid. Back then, I was what some may call a “free spirit” and rarely felt attached to anyone (although, depending on the person, I cried for a week or so when it didn’t work out), but things were different with him. My soul became tied to his. Our friendship devolved into codependency. Slowly, he was sinking his teeth into me; everything I did was to make him happy and it worked for him and ate me alive. He tested my loyalty and willingness to go out on a limb for his sake, and I failed myself but passed his standard. I stopped eating, sleeping, and took up residence in my head, spiraling into a deeper level of depression, becoming increasingly self-conscious and paranoid, crying every night. My mood depended on what he said or did and when he got back to me. I digressed into a fish with a hook in her mouth, only able to swim so far but not without pain pulling me back to my captor. If he’d call when I was with other friends, I’d drop everything to see him. He stole from me to see if I’d noticed. Hurt me a few times. We’d make each other jealous and cut one another with venomous words. We’d dance a dance on landmines and call it well.

Because I had been through so much, I knew that I could withstand but didn’t have to. This whole bitter song had reached a crescendo and the end was evident. In dreams, I saw things about him that I cared not to see. Although I prayed hollow prayers and wasn’t walking with Him, looking back I know God heard my cries. After some time of getting my ‘Criminal Minds’ on (building a case internally with a hypothetical cork board of newspaper clippings and pictures lined with red yarn), I laid it all on the table before him, spilling my guts about all that I was observing and feeling, carefully watching for his response. That was the night I knew that all the laughs and matching clothes, all the promises, the gifts, the mirrored personalities were all part of a methodically constructed lie. I thought that of all people he’d be the one to really mean what he said. Truly, I never knew him although I thought I did. He wore a different face with everyone. His sadism led him to desire being a maestro of control and chaos. When things in my life fell through or people drifted, it wasn’t always circumstantial. As he was talking, I replayed all the times he’d try to manipulate me out of pursuing certain things that he knew I’d excel at. For a while it was evident, but all at once, the files locked away of our conversations and marked little ‘that doesn’t make sense’s came flooding back. I kept nodding on the ride home, verifying every untruth that came to the surface. At that moment, I became stone cold while he shed a few tears asking me to just say something. I then informed him that I’d landed my first tattoo apprenticeship and turned away forlornly staring blankly out of the passenger side window until we crept up to my house after what seemed like too long a drive. That night I chose the pursuit of whatever else BUT my perverted idea of whatever that “love” was.

In the months following, I dared not go back, but not in my own strength. I felt free in a sense although so broken over the loss of years living in a false reality. My prayers were heard although my heart was shattered and far from God. “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.” –Psalm 34:18. In a sense, that time felt like recovery. My family started to notice that he wasn’t coming around and that I was handling it fairly well, not saying much at all. Mutual friends would ask me how he was doing, not for the sake of knowing or caring, but because we’d go everywhere together and they wanted to know what happened. I gained a sense of stability back but leaned on my own understanding. Although the Lord gave me the courage to leave, I relied on myself for everything else. Even sadder still, I gave my allegiance to the enemy for what I felt God wasn’t willing to (or at that time I felt couldn’t) give me. Back then, I asked my mom to pray for me because I didn’t think God cared enough to hear me. More ensued thereafter and if I thought that I knew darkness before, in the time ahead the world became vantablack.

For years afterward, I struggled to forgive him, blaming him for everything that went sour. I became obsessed with knowing the truth of what really had happened, how he really felt, and if any slice of that life was true. It was too painful to think that he truly never felt the same and that I could be anyone; he just needed a willing and damaged person that had compassion for him. When I accepted the Lord into my heart, I did so in brokenness and honestly wasn’t thinking about anyone or anything from the past; it was like the isolated happenings of pain melded, quilting together into a general blanket of hurt. And would you believe me if I told you that the Lord in His kindness and mercy took it away? Ever since, I have not felt the burden of that palpable, specific hurt although that’s not to say life has been easy.

When I said yes to God, He kindly gave me some time to settle in. Then came the dreams. I’d see the man that hurt me looking frail or meek and have my heart hardened not even being able to look at him or frowning. I could feel my disgust for him and my level of unforgiveness even after all that time passed. I said with my mouth that I forgave him, but my heart held such anger and resentment towards him. You know when you say you forgive someone but really you just try to ignore the matter entirely? Maybe even “La, la, la!!!” when the thought comes to mind? Maybe not acknowledging Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”? Because someone was used by satan (and yes, I know his name is a proper noun, but to hell with that fool [literally]) to hurt us, we take the devil’s bait in putting 100% of the blame solely on the person and making a complete enemy out of them rather than hating the puppeteer. That doesn’t make the abuse okay…it doesn’t erase what they did or rewrite history, and boundaries ARE very necessary…but let us not forget who the master of destruction is and seek vengeance on him and his demons (John 10:10A: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”)

Holy Spirit was revealing to me what I still had in my heart that I wasn’t at all willing to acknowledge or face. And then He prompted me to pray for him. Record scratch. Hold the phone Lord, You said pray for HUH? Pray for a dude that would tap dance on my grave if he even thinks about my existence whatsoever? For the person that tried to take me out? I knew I was hearing from the Lord because nothing in me would say or feel that. In those times of prayer, the Lord revealed some of the things that hardened his heart and hurt him. When you have a gash that isn’t washed or cared for, it becomes severely infected, and people’s souls are no different. Some of the truest sayings are cliché: hurt people hurt people. I even had to acknowledge the role I played in all of it and how it prodded specific wounds in his heart as well. By no means was I a good person at the time or even felt I was back then. Oh, how it humbles your heart to acknowledge and share blame. The Lord walked me through (and continues to walk me through) learning how to forgive; it isn’t just a one and done “Okay, everything is cool now, get over it.” Forgiveness is a choice you make daily, even multiple times a day. “Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” –Matthew 18:21-22. It is a part of picking up your cross and following the precious and sinless Man that laid down His life and forgave our immeasurable sin. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”—Romans 5:8.

Something that I am coming to know is when the Lord walks you through healing, it will be incredibly uncomfortable. He knows what you can handle and when, but He doesn’t mince words and make you believe that you are always right and question why you are on earth since you should be amongst the angels in heaven being so perfect. Through this year and a half that I have been walking with Jesus, I have come to know things about myself that I didn’t know and roots of problems that I didn’t care to look at. Light exposes darkness and when it is shown, darkness has no choice but to flee. I am learning that fleeing has various speeds and layers. The sting of past pain can be a thick, seemingly impenetrable wall you feel you cannot overcome or a short bridge you stubbornly are refusing to cross. And sometimes it feels so much more nuanced than that.

It was only after practicing forgiveness and praying for the person who hurt me that I felt the Lord being able to stitch a section of my heart back together. For years, I walked around with a brokenness in my chest even after giving my life to God from relationships familial or otherwise that were (waaaaaaaaay) less than ideal. I figured it was just my burden to carry through this life. Let me tell you, Jesus died so that we didn’t have to live that way. He died so even on this side of Heaven we could experience the joy of the Lord and not be weighed down by feelings of continuous pain. Yes, we have trials and painful seasons of life, but in John 16:33B Jesus says, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” He knows every sorrow and pain that we could ever feel and live and died so that through His strength, we could overcome it, not let it overtake us.

If you are wondering how to heal from a broken heart, the answer is found in James 4:8 A: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” We cannot truly heal ourselves and it’d be foolish to think so. How does one form a relationship with another person? We ask questions, talk to them on a consistent basis, give them the time of day, listen to their responses, and just sit with them. The Lord is a great listener and there is nothing under the sun that He hasn’t seen or heard so you are really at liberty to be as honest (and REVERENT a.k.a fix your mouth like you know Who you’re talking to [“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,” Proverbs 9:10A]) as you’ve ever been. He knows anyway, no point in hiding it. Giving it to God is such a freedom no one has words for. It’s a bit paradoxical, at least in my experience: it doesn’t seem so simple and it’s not, but it is. The process itself is difficult as you are made to confront a lot of painful things, however when you get to that other side, there are so many gifts waiting for you. We can live the 1 Peter 5:7 experience, “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

There is a certain arrogance in not letting go; it can feel as though the person has the upper hand especially if they haven’t acknowledged their wrongdoing. It can feel like carrying that grudge allows you to be in control of the situation when truly all it does is make you a bitter person, owning the smell of the grave. That unforgiveness can hold you from experiencing deeper levels with God refusing to acknowledge what He has done to free you and extending His love to others. Imagine a butterfly in your hand anxious to get out. It flies around in the closed fist fighting for its life, tiring every second. When you set it free, oh how beautiful the big wide world is; there is abundant life outside of darkness. The aroma of flowers flows in the wind, caresses its wings, and carries it onward. In the same way, after letting go, you’ll soar higher than you’ve ever soared, being free from momentary torment.

Through this season of healing, the Lord shows me what it means for Him to be first in ways that I previously didn’t even fathom. Jesus is the first Man that I’ve ever fully trusted, the first Man I’ve ever been truly in love with, the first Man whose love I was truly enveloped by—a love so pure, so tender, whose depths you’d suffocate the weight of—and genuine. Never have I been loved so well and never will I be loved more abundantly than His love. Jesus pursued me like no other when I was quite literally playing for the kingdom of darkness. An advocate for the devil. It used to touch my heart when a dude would finagle a way to reach out to me after I blocked them on everything, let alone the King of Heaven and earth reaching out to a wretched sinner like me. Someone who was starting to see God as a maniacal overlord. At times, it makes me laugh because He’s been so funny in His pursuit; He is r-e-l-e-n-t-l-e-s-s! He loves us that much…Can you imagine that? Well, you don’t have to imagine because we get to live in that reality.

Although, honestly, I ache for healing to be over and done with because at times it hurts so badly, it is a lengthy and continual process that we all must go through so that when we get out into the world, we serve others from a place of wholeness. However, God can still use you in whatever stage of healing you are in and use your pain for His glory. The many trials we walk through not only strengthen, teach, and mold us but provide an amazing opportunity for us to fully rely on God and His strength. If you had a bad engine in your BMW would you go to a Jeep dealership? That just sounds silly, right? In the same way, searching for true healing outside of God is very foolish in that it accomplishes nothing. He will send people your way, speak to you, and deliver you of those deep pains if only you’ll let Him.