Refining My Brokenness

So one of my resolutions this year was to write more, or at least again. I have always healed, laughed and lived through my writing but for some reason over the last few years I have stopped baring my soul through pen and ink. It is a little like deciding to stop breathing to a writer, but I am deciding to take a deep breath again. I am deciding to write again. so I know who I am. So my kids will know who I was. So I can find out who I am becoming.

I am going to start by trying out Lisa-Jo Baker's Five Minute Friday. The plan is you write for 5 minutes on a particular topic provided by her each Friday, (no editing or re-writes...just unadulterated writing) today's prompt was BROKEN....so here goes...

BROKEN:

I grew up believing I was broken. I was broken cause I didn't have my dad. That if he was here I would experience an insta-fix. i guess that is why I wanted to have someone in my life always...never wanted to be alone. I figured that somehow a man would come into my life and fix me…’cause that is what men do isn’t it? I grew up believing that to be broken because you didn't have a dad or man was something you needed to be ashamed of and hide. You hide you're hurt. I’m not even really sure who taught me that lesson; but I knew it as surely as I knew I was broken.

Now many more moons than I would have liked have passed…and let’s be honest I’m still a little broken. I’m still a little convinced that I should be hiding it. The difference is that now I am sure that I am not the only one experiencing waves of brokenness. I am certain that we are all in our own way and in our own time breaking, repairing… breaking and repairing, refining ourselves like shining silver.

That man I dreamed of did come into my life. I am certain that the most honourable thing that my husband has done for me though is to sit beside me while I cry over my brokenness realizing I am not alone. He has watched me, encouraged me, cheered for me, covered for me and sheltered me while I fixed myself. He has never ‘fixed’ me; he has just loved me through my brokenness… despite my brokenness… sometimes because of my brokenness.

I don’t always love the realization that I am, in fact, broken at times. But I love the strength that comes from the refiner’s fire as the brokenness, my imperfections are burned off.