Broken Pieces

As I've watched 2016 come in and slowly sift through the timer, it amazes me that somehow we are already almost to the end of February.  It feels like I've been in a bit of a haze.  It feels like the year has started without me in many ways.  Let me explain.

I had high hopes for 2016.  I imagined that all the broken pieces of the last few years would somehow fix themselves and with 2016 being a new year, it would feel different.  It would be a new beginning.  I would be able to start fresh and it would all be okay.  I've been waiting to feel differently.  I've been waiting to feel whole.  I've been praying for changes and healing.  Instead, it feels like I'm just sitting and waiting.

The quote "time heals all wounds" doesn't ring true for me.  It doesn't.  It may help me forget the past, but it doesn't heal.  The passage of time doesn't automatically make you trust.  Time doesn't help you figure out how to put the broken pieces back together again.  Quite truthfully, with time, more difficulties have come.  Struggles have become bigger.  The pain has settled into a place that at times seems lessened because it doesn't stick it's ugly head up every day, but when it does, it almost seems bigger somehow. There are days when God seems more distant than ever.  There are days when the darkness seems darker than ever.

Over the last several months, I have realized that time doesn't heal all wounds.  And it doesn't erase the past.  However, I have also been resolved to hold out my hands to God and ask Him to put the pieces back together into whatever He has for me.  I will never be that un-shattered person that I used to be.  I will never be unbroken.  I will never be able to walk away from the scars in my life that I have encountered over the years.

At first I was looking at that as a negative thing.  But recently, I have been looking at them differently.  I saw a quote on Facebook that I had seen before but struck me so differently than it had in the past.  I know I have looked at my past experiences as places I've come from.  Episodes I've walked through and grown from.  But I hadn't really been looking at them like a badge of honour.  I was looking at some of my "war wounds" as something to be ashamed of.  As times when I had been weak.  Times that I was embarrassed about.  But as I have begun to look at them as "survival" stories, it's given me a different perspective.  Those scars whether they be stretch marks, healed skin scars, or scars on the inside in the deepest parts of my heart, they are still badges that show me I survived.  Even in those deepest darkest difficult spots of my life, God brought me through them.  He didn't take them away from me.  And he doesn't take those scars away either.  They are reminders to me that He stood there with me in those difficult moments.  Every wound, visible or hidden, are scars that have been stitched back together by God.  The raw wound has been healed, but the scar will remain.  And I can look at that scar as ugly or with anger or disappointment that I have it at all, but the truth is, I HAVE that scar.  The wound didn't consume me.  It didn't take me down.

Recently my sister was visiting for a week and it was so refreshing to chat with her.  She looked at our family and saw hope.  She saw potential.  She saw the hurt, the ugliness and pain.  But more importantly, she reminded me that despite all the pain and raw hurt that has been and is there, God is still there.  And the scars we have are just signs that we have survived and that God is still doing a work of restoration.  I'm not sure how or what that looks like yet, but He is there.  He has been there.  And He will always be there.

The images that the Bible shares with us of Jesus after His crucifixion are not images of Jesus made physically completely whole again.  The Bible tells us that the disciples put their fingers in the holes made by the nails.  Jesus' scars remind me that He "survived".  He conquered death for me.  He has walked beside me and watched as my life has developed scars.  But He has always been there reminding me of the scars He encountered for me.  Without HIS scars I wouldn't have the hope of an eternity in Heaven.  And without my scars, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

So today I claim the promise that God is in the business of restoration.  It might not always look the way I envision that restoration to be.  And it certainly won't take away the scars that have already been created.  But I DO know that God can and will use those scars to bring glory to Him.  I need only to keep holding out my hands to Him and waiting for what He has.  It might not happen today.  It might not happen tomorrow.  But when it does, I know that God will restore me, despite the scars that exist.