Have you ever thought of yourself as broken?
Have you ever looked at your life and done some soul-searching? Have you ever taken the time to stop, look in the mirror and recognize what you see?
Most people don’t, and these people stay broken. These people never change.
We are all born into very different homes. Some may have a great family and a horrible school life. Some may have a terrible family but great friends. Some may have a toxic work environment or a marriage that is falling apart. Some may lead a happy life or one without worries and stress.
Whatever life you are living, whatever environment you are growing in, and the interactions you have with people has shaped you into what you are today.
And who are you? Do you know yourself? Do you know your true self or are you creating the persona of a person you want to be and portraying that character?
Are you hiding the real you from the rest of the world? Do you even realize that you are hiding?
When we are young children our personalities show through clearly. That is the closest we will ever get to who we naturally are without external circumstances changing us.
But once we reach our older years, we become someone completely different.
It might be shown outwardly with the addition of a complete change in appearance, the items we own, or the groups we join. It might be shown inwardly through a change in personality and character or likes and dislikes.
Whether because of a painful past, a desire to be like someone else or to get through a tough environment, we change. Or we change from the influence of someone we admire or learn from someone else’s mistakes.
We change ourselves. But does an artificial change heal us from the problem? Does it make us live a better life?
Or is it simply putting duct tape on a cracked dam? Eventually, it will fail and life will come tumbling down. We can’t just put a temporary fix on our life. We must face ourselves, see reality for what it is and make conscious steps forward.
My Brokenness
I have always thought that I had the most amazing life. I had so much to be thankful for and so much that I had been blessed with. And for the most part, I have led a better life than most.
But there were certain things in my life that I refused to acknowledge or think about, the ugly parts of my life. Things that I couldn’t talk to anyone else about. Things that I was ashamed to tell people, things that I thought were normal (found out they weren’t), and things that were downright wrong but I simply brushed them off and forgot about them.
I did not want to see the broken parts of me so I pushed them back into my memory banks without ever addressing them. Without truly thinking about what happened to me and allowing myself to go through the emotions and thoughts that came with that memory.
I refused to be broken.
I didn’t believe that people could hurt me because I was tough. I was strong. And nothing could bother me if I didn’t let it.
I didn’t want pity and I didn’t need help. I could get through it on my own.
Because of these thoughts, and other childhood reasons, I put up an imaginary wall between myself and other people, even family members. I did everything on my own. I never asked for help.
I started to have a personality that was very hardcore and competitive. I was always a tomboy, and even though I had three brothers, I always felt like I had to be the alpha. I liked to be the fighter you needed to be careful of.
Sweet and cuddly, but don’t get on my bad side or you better watch out.
But this was all my way of protecting myself. If I kept people at arm’s length they wouldn’t find out the ugly parts of my life. If I was tough I would be seen as strong and not weak.
People have always told me that I am so confident and bold. And although I can be, this is also a way to protect myself. I have been called ugly and fat and asked many times if I was pregnant when I was not.
I have been rejected by many people, I have been seen as less than others, I have been played with, and I have been invisible. To overcome these hardships I had to portray confidence. I had to show that these people were incorrect in their views of me and that what they said did not bother me.
I had to be bold and outgoing to counteract these feelings of inferiority inside of me.
It is said that boisterous people are often times the most self-conscious and
have the lowest self-esteem.
I can say for certain that this was true for me. I had very low self-esteem. I hated my looks, my intelligence, my brokenness, and my weakness. I craved attention and intimacy because I felt unseen and neglected by those closest to me. But I could never let people know that. It was too risky and I felt no good would come from it. I really didn’t want to hear the advice people gave me, typically it wasn’t very helpful. It was more a “get over it and you’ll be fine” sort of talk.
So I had to hide myself.
God Sees The Real You
The world may be fooled, but God will never be. You cannot hide from Him.
The world judges you based on first impressions, your outer appearance, the lies that you tell, and the circumstances happening in your life. But God sees it all. He knows everything that is happening to you. He knows everything that you are feeling. He knows how you became the person that you are trying to portray.
He knows the truth. He knows the real you.
No matter how much we may want to, we cannot hide from God.
“Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?” says the Lord; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:24)
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13)
No matter how much we try to cover it up, God knows the heart.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7)
Would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart. (Psalm 44:21)
There is no amount of trickery and deception that we can use that would work on God. He sees our bare souls, our hurt bod,ies and our broken spirit. He is looking at you, are you looking at yourself?
God Saw Me
In all the deep conversations I’ve had with my friends and family, I had never once shown my vulnerabilities. I may have discussed my faith, my annoyances, my thoughts, and my joys, but I steered away from the stuff buried deep inside my soul.
The things that hurt me, the things that could hurt me again if told to the wrong person.
Honestly, besides God, my husband is the only one that knows every part of me even to this day.
I have many things in my past that I wish had never happened.
But they were things I could never change. But there was someone who noticed the real me back when I was in 8th grade. She was my Christian camp counselor. We were only together for a week but she left a great impression on me.
She was the first person that I felt was seeing the real me, although, I never let my guard down or mask slip. It was almost as if she could sense my true self, my hidden soul. She could feel something was off and would show me love and kindness.
I have no doubts that God was leading her spirit and allowing her to understand me. She never forced me to talk. She never pushed me to come out of hiding. Without saying it, she let me know that she was there if I ever wanted to show my broken side and that she would cherish me.
I don’t remember opening up to her. But I remember that I wanted what she had. That amazing aura of love, that ability to see the truth, and her deep love for God. She was a college student working on her biblical counseling degree. After meeting her, I knew with all my heart, that I wanted to be just like her.
I wanted to be a biblical counselor. I wanted to help those who didn’t know how to help themselves. I wanted to be a vessel used by God to make a great change in others for the better.
I wanted to be me. And the real me no longer wanted to hide.
But I had to look in the mirror.
God Reaches Out
And that is how God works in our lives.
He will never force you to come to Him, He just wants you to know that He is always there. He is waiting, waiting for us to be comfortable with Him. Waiting for us to trust Him to show our real selves. He is holding out His hand and is waiting for us to grasp it.
He does not need perfection. He does not need unblemished. He wants those who are broken to come to Him and trust Him with what little they have to offer. He wants to make us whole. He wants to glue our lives back together with His love.
He wants us to know that He will cherish us in all of our brokenness. Because He does not see us as worthless pieces of trash. He sees us as the beautiful creation He had planned us to be. And with our brokenness, He can create a new purpose for our lives. A new plan and a new creature that is capable of much.
God saw me, the real me, and He sent me this specific camp counselor for a reason. Did my camp counselor ever know how much she meant to me? Not at all. Did she find out that I wanted to follow her foot steps because of her influence? No. I never saw her again and I never told her the thoughts of my heart.
We will never know the seeds that we have planted in people for God. Only He knows. It is up to us to follow His leading and pray that that seed will grow and flourish. My camp counselor will be blessed in heaven for her good deeds, although she won’t know the good she did for me until then.
And I pray that God will send you someone like that. Someone that shows God’s love to you, not in a way where you feel judged for your sin, but seen by your Savior.
Someone that will show you, to God, brokenness does not mean worthless but instead precious.
Look In The Mirror
It took me quite a while to finally look in the mirror.
I saw hope in helping people, I felt joy when I made a difference in their lives. I felt as if this was making me whole. This was how I was going to be healed, by helping others.
But it didn’t. It simply gave me another temporary fix to my hurt. Because I didn’t face the issues that caused the harm in the first place. I just put them to the side and forgot about them. I was spending my time and energy helping others so I didn’t have to do the hard part of facing my hardships.
Because let’s face it, it’s easier to help other people than ourselves. It is easier to see their problems and where it stems from and make them do their own work of healing than to do our own.
It wasn’t until I was 30 and started getting a renewed interest in becoming a counselor, that I realized how broken I was. I had gone to a meeting where a biblical counselor that focused on abuse victims/domestic violence was speaking.
The most important answer she could give to our counseling questions was that we had to look in the mirror. We could only take care of ourselves and our own responses. So before we do anything else, before we try to help others, we must make sure that we are whole. That we are healed from our own problems.
I went home that day and for the first time ever, I looked in my life’s mirror. I thought about everything that happened to me and things that I had done in the past.
I had many long conversations with God. I listened to a ton of biblical counseling podcasts. I had to see the broken pieces before I could heal from it and I had to get past it with God’s help.
I could not do it on my own.
God Tells Us To Look In The Mirror
I believe that it is a biblical fact that we should look in the mirror and search our souls.
And not look at only what has happened to us, but who we are. Is how I behave pure or full of sin? Am I hurting others with my actions? Am I acting like the person I truly want to be? Do I like who I am?
If you don’t like yourself then you SHOULD change.
If you are sinning against God then you SHOULD change.
If you love God then you should always be searching for ways to improve yourself and be more godly in spirit, soul, mind, and body.
There are verses in the bible that say we need to be careful in how we judge others but I believe we can also see it as God telling us that we need to be healed ourselves. That we need to be whole as a person through His power.
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:1-5
When we judge others we are looking at their sins and pointing them out, even if they didn’t ask for our advice or input. We are not doing what God wants, which is looking at our own sins and judging ourselves before we judge them. Like I said before, it is easier to see another person’s problems before ourselves.
And just the same, how can we fix their brokenness before fixing ours? We cannot. We can’t help them pull that speck out of their eye when we have a massive beam on our own. Our best efforts, and our deepest desires to help will be futile.
Just like the last verse says, we are being a hypocrite. We are not being truthful. We are showing ourselves as complete, which we can only be in God.
Broke people cannot help broken people. We need God, we need His perfection and wisdom.
But first, we must be willing to be honest about ourselves.
Recognize What You See
When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
Do you notice wrinkles showing along your skin? The acne or unwanted facial hair in very pronounced places? The childish face of a 52-year-old? The beautiful color of your eyes? The intricately designed frame of your face? The beautiful, silky hair that kisses your cheeks?
Do you see the bad and the good?
Work On The Ugly
As we work on our life we must come to terms with the ugly things in them. We must see them for what they are and accept that they are ugly.
But know this…
Those parts do not define you. They do not determine your value. Everyone is valuable to God, even if they are ugly and have ugly parts to them. But it is up to us to decide what to do with the ugly.
- Is your ugly permanent?
Is it a part of you that you cannot change such as an event that took place? An affair, a neglected childhood, or a traumatic experience such as a natural disaster? The only thing we can do is accept that it happened to us, determine how we want to react to it, and learn to live with that being our past. We cannot change it and mulling over it will not make it go away.
We then need to create a new identity for ourselves, one where we don’t forget what happened but we don’t live it over again in our minds. A mind that keeps living out a hurtful moment leads to poor health of the body. Our bodies cannot handle continuous hardship. Eventually, it will break.
How do you think people that saw the horrors of war pressed on with their lives? Or those who had their whole lives changed by slavery or the sex industry?
They did not let it define them. They did not see their value lessen because of their past. They moved on and found a new purpose, a new goal, and a new identity.
- Is the ugly something you can change?
So instead of it being a past event maybe it is a current problem. A toxic family member, a porn addiction, or a foolish mistake we have made to just name a few.
These must be dealt with differently. Maybe we need to stop communicating with toxic family members. If they are hurting your family then perhaps you need to separate for a while, possibly even permanently. Click here to learn how to deal biblically with a toxic family.
If it is a porn addiction you can get help for it. Go to a therapist, go to a help group, and ask God to help you get rid of it. You are not stuck and you are not alone. God is greater than your porn addiction, He can rid you of it. Click here to find out how.
The most important thought we must have when facing current ugly problems is how is it affecting our lives?
Is it just something that bothers you, such as a clash in personalities? Is it something that simply annoys you, like how your kids leave their toys everywhere? Or is it much deeper than that?
We must see the real cause for the emotion to the problem, the root cause and not the skin deep reactions.
We might need to have an honest and hard conversation with someone and that will fix the problem. We might need to set boundaries for people or ourselves to protect our families. We might need to have an “or what” moment if those boundaries are crossed.
No one said it was going to be easy to be an adult. But as long as we are trying to do the right thing in the right way, God will help us see the path we should go. He will bless us when our motives are right and our heart is looking to Him.
You are not stuck in the ugliness. We can change our future. God has made everything beautiful, it is sin that has turned it ugly. So come to God and let Him change your life.
Enhance The Beauty
It can become discouraging and depressing to stay in the rut of the ugly problems. After we make a decision on how to move forward we must look for the beauty. What are the beautiful parts of you and your life that you love?
Enhance that beauty. Focus on it and help it to become something grander than you thought possible. Find other areas of your life that you want to become beautiful. Don’t be satisfied with staying the way you are. Want the change and positivity that comes from taking care of yourself and searching your soul.
Throughout all of this, we cannot forget who gave us the beauty and where more beauty can be found. God made every beautiful part within us and He wants us to become more pure and whole through His leading. Even if we try to be the most whole person in the world and spend so much time and effort taking care of ourselves, we are still broken without God.
We need to bless Him and thank Him for the blessings He has given to us. Our happiness does not come from ourselves, but instead through God. God is what blesses and heals our souls.
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
Psalm 103:1-10
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Give It All To God
To have rest and peace from your afflictions you must give them all to God. It is exhausting to continuously hide your real self and be afraid of being hurt. Give God your fears, your vulnerabilities, your self-esteem, your worth, your ugliness and your beauty. He wants every part of you, the real and the fake.
Don’t just give yourself to God but also trust Him with your future. We will still have hard times and go through unpleasant experiences. He sees them, He knows them and they happen for a reason.
If I say, “My foot slips,”your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up. In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul. (Psalm 94:18-19)
When you have finally become healed in God and are no longer broken, then tell your story. Share your experiences. Be there for someone else that is struggling in the same ways you were. God can use that pain and turn it into a blessing, a good thing.
It seems impossible to make a bad thing good, but God can do anything. As Joseph said to his brothers that sold him into slavery, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” (Genesis 50:20)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
