About Brokenness

By Ruth Eshbaugh

I am a broken person and God is healing me. How do I know this?

I am a broken person because I am newly divorced. I am a broken woman because I left a difficult marriage after 28 years that ended years of verbal and emotional abuse and neglect. I am a broken woman because as the result of the events surrounding my divorce I lost my ministry, my church and my support group. I am a broken woman because the sin against me was aimed at my identity as a woman, as a person and as a believer. I am in need of healing and I am finally at a place of healing. That place of healing is inside of a local church body. The most difficult part of this is that it was in a local church body that I was wounded. It makes the process difficult and slow. I have trust issues, I have abandonment issues. I need to reach out and I have fear of doing so. It is not an easy place to be, but it is where I am. And God is there with me just as He promised.

In my new church we are studying Ephesians and what it means to be part of the body of Christ. It is an important study for me personally and very timely. I realize I have not left the body of Christ because of a bad experience. I left a church and have moved on to find healing and restoration. When I first arrived it seemed impossible that I would ever be ok again. I stayed to myself, afraid that if people knew what I had been through they would judge me too.

I stayed and listened to their stories. I realized I was not the only sinner in need of grace. I had found my way into a local church that isn’t afraid to be transparent and try to deal with difficult issues believing God is God and he is in control and what he says in his Word is true. Many churches confess that, but not all live it out, translate it into their lives, their behavior, and their interaction with each other. Let’s say they put on a façade and play church. There is and can be no healing there. I believe that if a church wants to be the church it must be a place where people can find healing through forgiveness, restoration and reconciliation. That is the work of the local body. That is the mission of a healthy church. We are to be built up together and become conformed to the image of Christ. As we struggle along together we are to speak truth to each other.

That is what happened when I shared the introduction of this piece with my counselor. She is really more like a mentor. She is a writer too and I keep in contact with her via email of all my going ons, both good and bad.

She told me she does not, nor does Jesus, see me as broken. My identity is not in my brokenness, but in who I am in Christ.

That was a wake-up call for me because I have been so burdened by my recent past; tired and discouraged. I was really feeling stuck. What she was trying to get me to see was my focus in on how others define me and ultimately act upon those definitions thus often sinning against me.

The truth is for all of us in Christ, we are forgiven sinners. It is Christ who heals us. It happens when we see who we are in truth and who He is. It begins when we understand what He brings to the relationship. The crux of my problem is I have placed the painful and broken relationships I have above my relationship with my Lord and Savior. I have not fully used the benefits I have in Him. I haven’t mined the resources He provides me.

Because she loves me, my mentor and friend spoke truth to me. That is how the body of Christ works and how healing takes place. We point each other to the Savior both by our words and our actions. I am a forgiven sinner who is being heal, restored and reconciled to the body of Christ. How do I know this? I know this because the preeminent Christ is in me, the hope of glory heals. I can’t explain it; I can just point you to it in his Word.

From Ephesians chapters One and Two:

• In Him we are chosen

• We are predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will

• We were included in Christ when we heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation

• We were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit

• The Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance

• Through the Spirit of wisdom and revelation we may know Him better.

• The eyes of our hearts can be enlightened in order that we may know; the hope to which He has called us, the riches of His glorious inheritance, His incomparably great power for us who believe

• We were dead in our transgressions and sins, but because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ

• By grace we have been saved

• God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus

• Grace is the gift of God— not works

• We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do

• We were separate from Christ, but now in Christ Jesus we who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ

• He himself is our peace

• Through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit

• We are no longer foreigners and aliens

• We are fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household

• We are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.

• In Him we are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.
 

Ruth Eshbaugh is a graphic artist by trade. She is the webmaster for http://www.goodnewsnow.com and a writer for Lifted Magazine www.liftedmagazine.com. She has two grown sons; Sean and Scott who are grist for the mill when she writes. Ruth attends the University of Texas at Dallas where she is studying Fine Arts. She Attends Willow Bend Church in Plano Texas. Her Motto is: I am an artist who teaches, a teacher who writes. To comment on this article feel free to contact writers@blessedlady.com.

 

Healing