“Welcome to reality, we say. Do your best. Bury the pain. Remember the happy times. Somehow, considering that this approach doesn’t really work, I get the feeling that we were meant for so much more…”

What we forget, or ignore, is that we are told to embrace (deal with, go to counseling, scream at God, DO something to process) the pain. Psalm 51:17 says: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” God won’t look down on our experience, He won’t tell us to “suck it up, move on already, just forget it”

He may show us how to have compassion towards our enemy or towards ourselves. The “so much more…” is accepting, understanding, living in and propagating grace. “…so much more” is reaching a helping hand to the person sitting next to me. Thanking God for the good.

For me, brokenness is one of the few ways God has to get the really good stuff out of the jar (me). My lid gets stuck (usually ’cause satan stripped the threads or I shoved it on too tight thinking I was protecting something)and I don’t show the real stuff -I stop being the thing I was created to be.

I hope I don’t sound preachy or too naive. I live this stuff. It hurts. But it’s IN that and getting thru that the “something more” is hidden.