Some years ago I had just arrived at the day care center and was talking to the day care provider when my great-granddaughter dashed out the door to play with the other children. It wasn’t but a few minutes before she came back crying, asking for help. She complained through her tears that her arm hurt. I pulled up the sleeve of her coat and saw that her wrist was dangling from her forearm. The day care provider said, “Oh, that isn’t good.” 

Both her day care provider and I could tell her arm was broken. The feeling in the pit of my stomach couldn’t have been worse. We loaded her into my car and headed for the hospital emergency room. This little, almost 5-year-old was experiencing being “broken.” And I, as her custodial parent, was experiencing the pain of seeing my precious charge in a pained and broken state.

As our parent, how often our heavenly Father must experience the same pain as he observes our brokenness.  The paradox of it all is that without our brokenness we will not totally submit or come to the Father for help. It is only in our broken state that we think to ask God for help. We wait until we have fractured something in our being, in our lives, before reaching out for the help we need.  Reluctance to admit our vulnerability and to submit to our sovereign God is a part of our natural makeup. We are a stubborn and willful people and we think we can do everything ourselves.

I give thanks to our God, and his Son and the Holy Spirit for their willingness to receive us in our brokenness. I give thanks that all it takes for us to find healing is to ask our sovereign God for help.

What is your pain?  What is your brokenness?  Are you despondent, tired, discouraged, ill, unemployed or estranged? There is comfort in going to our heavenly parent. Crying out in pain is the beginning of our submission to God which allows us to begin to heal in spirit, soul and body.

Maybe our pain is because of estranged relationships or a loss of a loved one (I just lost my husband two months ago).  Maybe our pain is watching our children make bad choices in their lives (all parents are sensitive to this dynamic). Maybe our pain is unbearable due to our failure to walk with the Master Jesus Christ as we journey through life. Too many times we want some tangible entity to hold on to although no other human being in themselves has the capacity to give us what we need: peace, grace, mercy, forgiveness and endless love. However, God will use others to minister to us. Our neighbor, friend, even a stranger, can give us, as an instrument of God, the sense of God’s presence in our lives.

It all comes down to our relationship with God and our relationships with each other.  It comes down to the trust we have in our heavenly parent to heal our wounds just as my great grandchild trusted the day care provider, myself, and the medical team to heal her broken arm as we prayed.  Our little one was soon free of her cast.  Within three months she was as strong and full of vim and vigor as before the break.  She had the experience of those she trusted coming to her aid and completing the healing process.

All were instruments of God’s choosing and all she had to do was come and ask for us to make her better. 

Are you willing to come to the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit and ask them to make your brokenness better?  Even if you have experienced others who weren’t trustworthy, God is trustworthy.  And in time you, too, will experience greater wholeness in your life.

God will receive you with open arms and minister to you through his healing power of love, grace, forgiveness and mercy. All you have to do is ask.

If you are not experiencing what you identify as “brokenness,” then seek God wholeheartedly to guide you in your everyday life to be in His purpose for his will on this earth.  The steps to discovery along this line are basic questions. Actually, pretty easy ones. “God, what have you planned for this day?” “God, how may I serve you?” “God, I want to fulfill your purpose for me. Will you show me what you want me to do?”  More and more simple answers can be received by asking simple questions.

As a postscript, Josiah, 27 year-old, is in hospice with cancer. Your prayers can bring healing to him and his wife Jessica. God still does miracles.

Jesus loves you and so do I.