Monday, September 2, 2013

The Beauty of Broken



Elisa Morgan

Most of us don’t want to talk about the not-so-pretty stuff of life. We’d rather focus on loveliness. Hued sunsets. Tinted leaves. Indigo skies. Golden grass. Holidays. But I’ve discovered a beauty that God brings in the unseemly, unexpected, broken things. He brings beauty into broken relationships, shattered dreams and painful realities.

It’s time to talk.

From the vantage point of survival, I can see now that I swallowed a myth that needs to be exposed for me – and for others who have also fallen under its power: that it’s even possible to create a perfect family.

I thought it was my fault that my first family broke, when I was five and my father sat in a white easy chair in his home office and beckoned me to his lap. He looked into my eyes and said, “Elisa, I’ve decided I don’t love your mother any more. We are getting a divorce.”

I tried to keep my family from breaking more when I would hear my mother’s alarm clock in the morning, push back the covers and pad into the kitchen where I grabbed a glass, plunked in some ice cubes and poured Coca Cola over it. With a handful of chocolate chip cookies from the cookie jar, I made my way down the hall to my mother’s bedroom. There I placed “breakfast” on her nightstand, turned off the alarm and began the process of getting her up and ready for work. As a single mom, she needed to work and it was my daily job to wake her up. My mother struggled with alcohol.

My mother broke. I wondered what I could do to fix her.

So I determined it was my responsibility to make an unbroken family when I had a chance as a grownup to start fresh. After all, I had become a Christian as a teenager, had been involved in ministry, even gone to seminary, where I met and later married my husband. Precious, stable, rock of a man. I honestly believed that if I implemented “perfect family values,” then I would have a perfect family.

Problem is, I’m broken. Everybody is. Even God’s family was broken. So no matter what we do, we all end up making broken families. In one way or another.

There’s no such thing as a perfect family. Instead of fighting this reality – and failing – God invites us to embrace it. And to see the beauty he brings in the broken.

I come from a broken family. And despite my very best attempts to produce a formulaically perfect Christian family in my second—the reality is that I still come from a broken family. We are messy – gooey in the middle – and I love my family more than I ever thought possible, brokenness and all. I love who they are and I love who they have made me to be.

I’ve come to discover that God offers hope in the form of “broken family values”—values like commitment, courage, humility, reality, relinquishment, diversity, partnership, faith, love, respect, forgiveness and thankfulness. He understands that no one is perfect. He knows the unique journeys of loved ones. He gets it that abnormal is actually pretty normal. That people mess up and yet are worthy of respect and love and are never—ever—without hope. God holds each family close, crying with his wounded children, tenderly assembling and reassembling fallen fragments, creating us into better versions of ourselves.

God doesn’t sweep the broken up into a dustpan and discard it. In order to reach the broken in our world, God himself broke, allowing his own Son to die a broken death on a cross for us. He brings beauty in the broken. God loves the broken. God uses the broken.

I come from a broken family. I still come from a broken family. And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. I’m pretty sure that my story is likely yours too.

Elisa Morgan is the publisher of FullFill. With both joy and trepidation, she prayerfully celebrates the much-anticipated release of her new book The Beauty of Broken. Click here to order for yourself or to share with someone you want to love well.

8 comments:

  1. Thank you, Elisa, for being so vulnerable. God will create much beauty through your honest grappling with brokenness as a GIFTED communicator. I'm buying this one for sure. Bless you!

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    1. Thank YOU! Your words encourage me to keep unzipping - for God's good purposes in our world. How very much we need to know that we are not alone!

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  2. Amen to your sharing about brokenness, Elisa. I, too, thought I would create a perfect, or near-perfect, family after having survived being an only child of a broken home. I had a mostly absent father and three moms (my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother)--all of whom were dealing with broken dreams. And there was no "template" to show me the way to healing. Marrying a guy who was called to ministry seemed a promising way to go. But there we were, two of us broken and wanting to create a loving family (which we thought meant "whole; unbroken"). We had a lot to learn, and we still do, even as grandparents. The Beauty of Broken, a great title to keep in mind as we invite God's loving spirit to flow through our brokenness and put us on a path toward wholeness. Marty Cottrill

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    1. Thanks for sharing your story, Marty. Yes, God is so much more clearly seen to others, through our cracks. Love to you today.

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  3. This is beautiful. I couldn't agree more! So thankful for His ability to bring dead and broken things back to life.

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  4. HOW MY EX HUSBAND FINALLY CAME BACK TO ME !!!

    Hello everyone , I am Barbara Senna and i am from united states....In the past ,I was in a long term relationship that suppose to lead to marriage but one day came that my fiance lost interest in me because another woman was enticing him with money and fake love.i complained to a friend of mine about what my situation was and she gave me an advice that I contact a powerful spell Caster (eminikokorospiritualhelp@hotmail.com) . At first, i was lackadaisical contacting him but one faithful day, I took a bold step and i contacted him and he replied saying he would help me.. to cut the long story short,he caste a spell and my husband came back to me within 3 days..it was just a surprise to me as I never believed my husband would come back begging for forgiveness. Afterwards we got married, we just came back from honey moon some few days back.. here i am today testifying happily...I said to myself that I would share this to the world if my problem becomes a thing of the past..now I am happy and I am happy sharing it on here happily to all my friends.. so I urge any one who have problems of any kind be it any of these;
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    contact him now.His email address: eminikokorospiritualhelp@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. HOW MY EX HUSBAND FINALLY CAME BACK TO ME !!!

    Hello everyone , I am Barbara Senna and i am from united states....In the past ,I was in a long term relationship that suppose to lead to marriage but one day came that my fiance lost interest in me because another woman was enticing him with money and fake love.i complained to a friend of mine about what my situation was and she gave me an advice that I contact a powerful spell Caster (eminikokorospiritualhelp@hotmail.com) . At first, i was lackadaisical contacting him but one faithful day, I took a bold step and i contacted him and he replied saying he would help me.. to cut the long story short,he caste a spell and my husband came back to me within 3 days..it was just a surprise to me as I never believed my husband would come back begging for forgiveness. Afterwards we got married, we just came back from honey moon some few days back.. here i am today testifying happily...I said to myself that I would share this to the world if my problem becomes a thing of the past..now I am happy and I am happy sharing it on here happily to all my friends.. so I urge any one who have problems of any kind be it any of these;
    if you want your ex back? if you want to bind your husband with you forever?if you want to be cured of Cancer? if you want to be cured of HIV/AIDS? if you disabled? if you want to be prosperous? if you want to have increase in finance? if you want favor and goodluck? if you want to lose weight? if you want to gain weight? if you are barren and you want to have a child? If some who owes you and dont want to pay you back? if you want to be rich and lot more?

    contact him now.His email address: eminikokorospiritualhelp@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Am Tanya Albert from United State I was heartbroken that my boyfriend decided to leave the relationship, so I had the Retrieve A Lover spell cast. with Dr Ekpiku Within a week of the spell casting, he called "just to talk." After some pleasant talks and catching up, he asked to see me again. I felt he had started to turn around. I decided to give him a chance just to see. now we are happily married and He is absolutely crazy about me, i thank Dr Ekpiku for bringing back my ex, if you need his help you can contact him via email:Ekpikuspelltemple@live.com

    ReplyDelete