How To Get Stronger in the Broken Place – STEP ONE
Suffering Emotional Injuries
I’ve heard it said that football players who return to the game after having major knee surgeries are apprehensive of their recovery until they get that first, bone-jarring hit. Will the reconstructed bone and ligaments and tissue fall apart under heavy stress, they wonder. Or has the healing magic of the body and the surgeon’s steady hand made the broken place stronger than before?
I believe the same is true for those of us who have found ourselves in need of emotional healing. Our hearts have been broken, our souls have been ripped apart, our psyches have been cracked. After being carted off the field of life on a stretcher, how could we not doubt that we’ll ever be anything close to the same person again?
I know I did.
My Downward Emotional Spiral
Five years ago, after dealing with a prolonged and intense season of pressure in pastoral ministry and in life, I caved. I broke down and burned out. I spiraled downward into depression and started becoming a person I didn’t like very much. I suffered, my wife and kids suffered, and the church I was pastoring suffered.
In an effort to dull the pain I began, more and more, to put my own wants ahead of the needs of my wife and kids and the people God appointed me to serve. This did nothing but make my injuries worse. And when the worst parts of me began to win out over the good parts on an increasingly regular basis, I knew I was headed for destruction if I didn’t course-correct soon.
Therefore, in a desperate attempt to salvage what was left of me, I resigned from my church and moved back home to get some help.
As I drove down Interstate I-20 East, I was completely and utterly broken and had very little hope that a comeback was anywhere in my future.
The First Step to Emotional Healing
In Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway said, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.”
If I’d come across this quote as I limped home, I most certainly would have scoffed at such a hope-filled perspective of pain. But when you’ve just been injured all you can think about is the pain.
Perhaps you are there right now.
Maybe pieces of your heart are littering every corner of the floor, like a glass bowl that’s been knocked from the top shelf. The pieces are so strewn, in a year from now you’ll still be finding them in corners here and there.
As you stare at the swept up pile of shards and chunks and slivers of your emotions, you think, “How could this ever be made whole again? How can I ever love again? How can I ever be useful to anyone, to God again? It’s just not possible.”
Oh, but it is. You can heal up, you can be made whole, and, yes, you can even become stronger in your broken place.
Trust me.
But you won’t believe that today. Nor do you have to. For today, all you need to do is NOT give up. When you’re badly hurting, that’s all you can do, that’s all God expects you to do. And for today that’s more than enough.
What About You?
Have you ever been injured by life? Do you remember the period where all you could think about was the pain? What gave you the strength to NOT give up? Are you currently in this type of battle? If so, what is getting you through it?
Drop me a reply in the “comments” section. I would love to hear from you.
Jathan-
Thanks for your words of healing. It’s nice to know I am not alone. I have often felt like my injuries have bled out on my family and friends leaving a horrible stain. Ultimately as I have healed, that stain too has been removed…. hard to see at the time, but it is happening.
—-Gabby
You are not alone, for sure. And you’re right, it’s hard to see at the time. It’s so great to hear that you’re getting stronger and stronger with time. And that there is much new growth in your future.
Hey brother, feel totally betrayed and let down in the middle of this battle.
So did Jesus as He said, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” He felt that for us because he knew that we all would one day feel the same. And look to His words to receive strength to continue our journey through the trial. And eventually be as Job said, “But He knows the way I take. And when He has tried me I shall come forth as gold.” Prayers for you, my brother. Be encouraged, Jathan