Amidst My Brokenness

I've been a little bit of a mess lately. I've been a little sad and angry and empty.

Sometimes I wonder how God can let bad things happen to some of the most beautiful and strong people I know. I've been struggling a lot as I watch one of my best friends struggle with a disease where the average life expectancy gives her about 15 more years. I am broken at the lack of support of the people around her sometimes. I am broken when she doesn't want to do her treatments around me, because she's worried about how I feel about them. I am broken that I can't better understand what she's going through. I am broken that I can't help more.

I am frustrated and confused on what God's plans for my life are. Why is He allowing me so much time that I see as wasted. Why can't I just know where He wants me and what I am supposed to be. Why can't He give me answers and clarity and peace. Sometimes it breaks me that I can't control my future.

I break after work some days as I watch parents holding onto hope that their child can learn to eat and live and survive days without medication and nursing and extra. As they rejoice in apple juice swallows and potty training victories. Sometimes it breaks me that I can't fix him.

And it's funny. Amidst my brokenness, I learn that it's okay to be broken. The author of Psalm 102 is so broken.

"For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.
My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;
I forget to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning
my bones cling to my flesh...
I lie awake;
I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop....
For I eat ashes like bread
and mingle tears with my drink..."

So broken they forget to eat. So broken they describe their heart as withered, their flesh as plaster. Their nights endless and demeanor lonely.

And it's so so comforting that someone else has been there too.

And it's so so comforting that their response is a reminder of the faithfulness of an everlasting and all knowing God that loves me.

I still get angry sometimes. Angry that God would let people be sick. Angry that God would let orphans die alone and unknowing of love. Angry that God would let people go their years, even their whole lives without knowing what their passions and callings are. But then I realize, maybe I'm not angry at God. Maybe I'm broken. Maybe God is changing my heart for those sick, to comfort them. To sit with them and laugh and sometimes cry and live life alongside them. Maybe God is changing my heart for the unloved, to teach and show them love in all the ways I can think of. To show them grace that Jesus has shown me. To show them the love that He has shown me.

And crazy as it may be, maybe that's my passion, maybe that's my calling. I am here to show Jesus. I am here to show love. To spread comfort and peace and grace, just as I have been shown.

I wish my college major could be love.

But maybe that's why I'm in "nursing limbo" to learn love better. To learn to be a peacemaker. To emit Jesus like it is my job, because in His eyes, the only ones that matter, it is.

"But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
you are remembered throughout all generations...
Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
but you are the same, and your years have no end.
The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before you."