The Importance of Knowing We're Broken

You might be thinking, "Wait! I'm not broken!"  Or you could be thinking, "How did she know?  I thought I was hiding it so well!"  I know because we are all broken.  By broken I simply mean that we get sick sometimes, and our bodies get old and achy and can't do what we want them to anymore.  We can't seem to stop ourselves from occasionally being sad, and angry and making bad choices.  To be human is to be broken, and we need to know this in order to realize that we need Jesus.

Not only is it important to know we are broken, I think it is important to share our brokenness, and not try to hide it so much.  It is in sharing that we can comfort people who thought they were the only ones who can't get it right, or who don't know what to do.  In sharing, we can comfort people with the stories of our struggles, and how eventually our prayers were answered, or our burden lifted.  And for whatever we are still struggling with, perhaps it is in sharing that we will find help, and compassion.

People are not perfect.  Unfortunately some people share and have found judgment, and self righteousness.  But Jesus loves the judgmental and self righteous people too because to be judgmental and self righteous is to be broken and in need of love and compassion as well.  At any time we can be both the judged and the judgmental and in either case we need Jesus to help us forgive or to help us see with love.

In Elder Holland's talk Broken Things To Mend, that I read through a few times before I got the courage to go get help when I needed it, he quotes a poem by George Blair called "The Carpenter of Nazareth".  I am going to share a part of it.

“O Carpenter of Nazareth,

This heart, that’s broken past repair,

This life, that’s shattered nigh to death,

Oh, can You mend them, Carpenter?”

And by His kind and ready hand,

His own sweet life is woven through

Our broken lives, until they stand

A New Creation—“all things new.”

In sharing our brokenness we can help others find Jesus, who can mend all that is broken,

and make all things new.

***Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash