The Path Forward

There is a brokenness where you can step in early and kind of put the pieces back together before they fall completely apart, and there is a brokenness that you have to let crumble before you can even find a place to begin, but the one thing that they both have in common is that there is no path forward other than through it. 

We spend our lives trying to compensate for our brokenness. Sometimes, we do this subconsciously - we aren't even aware of the ways in which we are compensating; we just do it. Sometimes, we know exactly what we're doing. 

For example, if you have a weak leg, you'll automatically be shifting your body weight toward your stronger leg, without even realizing it. Or maybe you know you have a weakness for certain social situations, so you set up a rescue phone call with a friend before you attend an event - so you have an excuse to leave when you need it. 

The problem is that these compensations do not actually fix our brokenness. They do not solve our problems. They make us more functional in the world, for a short while, but eventually, they create greater weaknesses and more problems. 

Shifting your weight may work for awhile...until your good knee and hip and ankle start to ache. Until your back starts to curve. Until your shoulders start to slope. And all of a sudden, years have passed, and you're entirely bent out of shape and you didn't even know it. 

Having a friend give you a rescue call works for awhile. Until you need to stay longer. Until your friend is busy. Until your phone battery dies. And now, you're stuck, with no skills for navigating the social situation, no clue what to do except beg for someone - anyone - to rescue you, and now, you're vulnerable to take any ol' way out of the situation because you don't know how to fend for yourself. 

Our compensations don't make us stronger; they make us weaker. 

The only real way to overcome brokenness is through it. 

It's through putting in the work. It's through being honest with ourselves. It's through recognizing our compensations and noticing the places where we're prone to cheat - not just to cheat our weaknesses, but to ultimately cheat ourselves. 

It's through intentionally working our weak places, building them up, finding true strength. Not ways to work around it, but ways to use it to our advantage. It's through being honest with others and asking for accountability. It's about confessing our weakness, and our weak moments, apologizing when truly necessary (not apologizing when it's not - we owe no one an apology for being broken), accepting temporary limitations, trusting in the God who makes all things new, and becoming new. 

Fruit doesn't form on a vine that tries to grow beside itself. It grows on the vine that keeps poking through, millimeter by millimeter by millimeter, in a single direction and slowly becoming bigger, stronger, more robust, and ready to bear fruit. 

That's how we get through brokenness. Millimeter by millimeter by millimeter, slowly becoming, growing through, until we're bigger, stronger, more robust and ready to bear fruit. Fruit that our once-weak knees and tired hands (Hebrews) are strong enough to support.