Today’s post comes from a fellow twenty something, Leading & Loving It‘s Communications Director, and my friend, Kaylee Zentai. Kaylee also recently shared her journey of becoming the woman God made her to be. Check it out here. Brew your favorite cup of coffee and dive into some incredible truths on why God uses broken people…
I don’t like messes. I am type A, administratively gifted and a moderate sufferer of OCD. So it shouldn’t shock you that I don’t like feeling like a messy person…a broken person. I like to have my stuff together. Lately though, I’ve been in a season of messiness and brokenness and pain. I was wrestling pretty intensely with it, pressuring myself to figure it all out and trying to rush through the healing process so that I could resume being someone who has it all together. I felt like it was important to do that because, in order to represent Jesus well, my messes needed to be cleaned and my brokenness fully healed. But in doing that, I completely missed the point: God uses broken people.
I’ve heard that saying more times than I can count, but I was always adding my own asterisk to it. The way I interpreted it sounded more like, “God uses broken people, once they’ve been healed and know what’s going on.” But this isn’t the rule, it’s the exception. God uses people in the midst of their brokenness and pain. He uses people who are broken—past, present and future. He uses breaking people. Once I realized that it was okay to be broken and messy, I also realized why.
Matthew 5 tells us that we are the light of the world. When I think of the light of the world, I think of candles in lanterns. I love lighting the candle in a little lantern in my house; the light leaks out of the holes in the lantern in beautiful shapes, casting out the darkness around it. But without having the holes—the brokenness—in the lantern, the light wouldn’t be able to get out. The same is true with us. If we don’t give ourselves the grace to be okay being broken—if we rush ourselves through the healing process—how will the light get through? When we are willing to be used by God in the midst of our brokenness, in our breaking, the light that shines through us can beautifully cast out the darkness that others around us may be in.
So whether you are broken past tense, future tense, or you are feeling the pain of breaking right now, give yourself permission to heal at your own pace. Don’t feel pressured to put make up on your wounds and mask your pain. Be willing to let the light shine through you as an encouragement to those who may be going through the same struggle as you.
