Gather The Broken Pieces

The title of this blog comes from something I feel like God showed me recently. I was crying my eyes out, feeling broken by life and love and everything that's supposed to make you feel whole. I told God "All I've got to give You is these broken pieces of me." And this pressed into my heart: "Gather the broken pieces...let nothing be wasted."

I knew the verse pulsing in my heart, I knew it well and had read it countless times. But I had never applied it to anything but the literal meaning. The words are found in John 6. It tells the story of how Jesus multiplied a young boy's lunch of five loaves and some fish, causing it to feed a crowd of 5,000 people. When everyone had eaten their fill, Jesus instructed the disciples to "gather the broken pieces." (Amplified version)

So why is it that at a time when I'm feeling broken, this is the verse that comes to me?

I think it's because I needed to be shown in a very visual way what God wants to do in me. It's my tendency to want to throw away broken things, to view them as useless, past hope, worth nothing to anyone. Whether physical objects or my own heart, broken has always meant "weak, damaged, less than" to me.

But brokenness, when given back to God, can turn into something beautiful...something that should not be wasted. If I "gather" my broken pieces and put them into the hands of Jesus instead of attempting to hide them from myself and others, He can use that to do something in me that He's always wanted to do.

This blog is my journey of finding who God made me to be. I'm inviting you to join me, to read the things I feel like God is showing me and perhaps be encouraged in your own journey. The posts won't always be pretty - true soul work never is - but they will be vulnerable, brave, and covered in God's grace.

I was once asked "So what's your story?" My heart was so used to hiding that I immediately said "I don't have one."

I was wrong. This is my story: how God can gather a broken heart to His and make His love shine through.

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