Devotions on Brokenness from Fil Anderson’s book, Breaking the Rules

Henri Nouwen said,” Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.  The main question is not ‘How can we hide our wounds?’ so we don’t have to be embarrassed , but ‘How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?’  When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.”
We are all broken people living together in a broken world.  If we bury our pain and sadness deep inside, it will simmer and stew and gnaw at our peace and joy. And in the process we become more broken and evidences of our hidden brokenness will seep through and leave its mark on all of life.

Jesus was at ease with broken people but unlike him we often condemn those whose lives are messy, broken, and out of control. Jesus never distanced himself from people’s pain and was open and receptive to those the religious people had cast aside. Perhaps it is because those whose hearts were broken were willing to let Him inside. Those who already felt righteous were so full of themselves that even the Gospel had little effect on them.

“The only cure for our brokenness is to stop playing charades, acknowledge our own and each other’s brokenness, and become united by the only One who was broken in order to make us whole.”