These are two words I’ve heard people use to describe their current situation in life a million times over. Brokenness is the state in which you find yourself in the crumbled ruins of your hopes and dreams with the realization that you must either rebuild or crumble with them. Emptiness is that black hole of sorrow and regret that sucks away all your motivation, leaving you with nothing but a bitter black void of a soul.
At least, that’s the impression I had.
The last month hasn’t really been hard; I’ve survived tougher times. It hasn’t really challenged me or pushed me. Actually it’s bored me. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this worthless in all my life.
Brokenness isn’t having your world crushed like a clay pot. That’s just being over dramatic. Worlds don’t get crushed, those are just obstacles standing in your way, not gigantic wrecking balls.
Emptiness isn’t finding yourself at the business end of an energy funnel. Again, that’s just expressing depression with a flair for the dramatic. Emptiness isn’t being drained of energy, it’s being drained of usefulness.
Emptiness is like a football stadium on a by weekend, like a field laying fallow for a year. It’s being full of potential and devoid of function.
Brokenness is more like breaking a horse than breaking a dish. It’s the process of learning discipline, the taming of freedom tempered by responsibility.
I’ve been running in circles for a while now, and every time I try to break free, the leash just gets tighter. I’ve been lying fallow for a long season now, and I’m longing for a purpose to draw from my potential.
But fields are left fallow to make them more productive. Football stadiums are cleaned and prepared during the by weekends. Horses become more useful with discipline.
It is my hope and prayer that in this time of testing, not by fire, but by the complete lack of it, that I would submit to the responsibility I am being taught through this discipline, that I would stop fighting the purpose towards which I am being prepared, and that I would be given the courage and wisdom to devote myself to this purpose governed by this responsibility.
Posted with : The Way
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor 15:13