We might not know everyone’s life story but we all have one thing in common – we are broken in one way or another. We live in a fallen world and traumatic experiences happen. We aren’t exempt from dealing with issues and as everyone deals with trauma differently, how you choose to channel trauma marks your freedom and progress. I want to submit for your consideration that even if your crayons may be broken, they can still colour.
There’s a chapter titled “Broken Crayons Still Colour” in I’m Planted, Not Buried where I explain cycles, brokenness and trauma. When we deal with trauma and brokenness, we can find ourselves stuck in cycles. We’re going to need God’s grace to deal with cycles as cycles are different from seasons. Seasons change with time and can be entered into and exited out of. Cycles only change when we change. Sometimes we don’t grow out of cycles. Instead, we remain stuck in dysfunction and find ourselves on a hamster’s wheel, going nowhere fast.
Cycles can be painful, discouraging, and exhausting because the more we try to change, we’re still stuck. Many people choose to deflect the pain caused by cycles and opt for coping mechanisms, but the only way to kill the cycle is to expose it. God reveals these cycles to heal us. His grace will grant the survivor strength to manage this and yes, you, my friend, are a survivor. The odds have been stacked up against you, but here you are still breathing, standing, and fighting for a better life you know exists.
When God heals you from brokenness, He is going to use you in ways you couldn’t have been used before. I got a fresh perspective of this when I was reading John 6, where Jesus feeds the multitudes. Before breaking the bread Jesus blessed it, in the same chapter in verse 35 He also announces that He’s the bread of life. I understood this as a metaphor that the bread is His body and Jesus’ body was broken for us to be set free from the power of sin. The body of Christ is also His Church (1 Corinthians 12:27). In the context of our lives, we need to be broken too, as the body of Christ, to be distributed to God’s people. We need to be like clay in the Potter’s hands and God will shape us to be everything He says we can be.
Being shaped by God will also feel like we’re being broken again but the difference this time is that God blesses us before the breaking. He breaks you so He can distribute your gifts and the fruits of your life will feed many people who could have gone home hungry – if you didn’t surrender your life for Jesus to manifest His purpose through you.
When the people were fed in John 6, twelve baskets were leftover and overflowing. Jesus told them to collect it all and let nothing go to waste. The same disciples Jesus uses to distribute the bread in the front end are the same ones who go home with overflowing baskets on the back end. Jesus is abundant and promises you an abundant life. Every trauma, every pain, every tear, each struggle and all our brokenness will bring an overflow to our baskets. You endured it all and you’re still choosing to serve God.
Anytime you serve Him by being a solution to others, God has a reward for you. Nothing will be wasted with your life, every broken part is already blessed and it will result in an overflow.