Brave

We have finished with the Bible study on the book Brave.  Remember?  I was going to let you know how I did.  How it affected me.  How it changed me.  It did you know.  But, not in the way I expected it to.  How often though do things happen the way we think they should?  And, how often are we even able to see ourselves the way God does?

So I went for several weeks, reading, writing, studying, and wondering--just how does this affect me?  I wasn't feeling a connection to this particular book.  I was OK with that though, I was enjoying meeting a lot of the women that attend my new church.  I was making friends.  And frankly, that was good enough for me.  I was enjoying myself.

That wasn't really good enough for God though.  I should have seen it coming.  Maybe I'm a little slow.  He had plans.  I wasn't going to be let off that easily.  It wasn't until the very last chapter of the book--that's when God began to show me some things about myself.  Things that I don't really like to think about--things from my past.

The last chapter of our book on being Brave was on brokenness.  I thought to myself--I'm not broken.  I'm not.  That's what I kept saying to God.  I'm not broken.  Yes, it's very true that I am tender hearted, that I cry easily, that I can empathize with the best of them--but broken?  No.  Not me.  I was not broken.  However, very gently (as He always does) God took me down a road--the road of my childhood.

I was right you know.  I am not broken as an adult.  I was, however, broken as a child.  I didn't even think about that aspect of brokenness.  My heart as a child had been broken and through that brokenness, God has been able to use me to help others.  I realized that via a scripture that we read today--that I have been healed.  My broken childhood is gone, it no longer exists.  At least that's what I thought--until today.  He showed me that even though He has healed me from the brokenness of my childhood, that I still bear scars.  And through those scars, I am able to walk alongside others who are hurting.  I feel their pain, I cry with them.  And I thought all along that I had chosen Psychology on my own...little did I realize--God had a plan.

In the book of Ruth, chapter 2, verse 10--Ruth says to Boaz--¹⁰ At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”

And that's when it hit me.  I had found favor in God's eyes, He noticed me as a broken little child, He reached down, scooped me up and He healed me.  He came after me, He found me.  He is truly my redeemer.  That is why as an adult, I did not identify with this last chapter in our Bible study book on brokenness.  I am no longer broken.  A few cracks?  Yes.  But broken no.  I have been redeemed, I am broken no more.  However, I am a crybaby, an empathizer, a counselor, a friend, I feel things deeply, and I now know that I am those things because of what God has done in my heart.  I identify with His children, his broken children.  That's what I cry about,  I cry for the people whom God loves, I cry for the broken hearted, I cry for what He cries for.  Why?  Because I've been there.

I'll write about that broken childhood one day.  And when I do I'll share it all.  It will have to be in God's perfect timing though.  Just as He heals me layer by layer, piece by piece, bit by bit, I will share my life through these pages.  A little at a time.  And, He'll be with me as I write so I won't be afraid--I'll be brave.