radically broken.

this past month as i have been posting and have had other amazing writers post on ways that we have seen and experienced what it means to live a radical life for Christ. these stories remind me of our powerful and victorious King. it also reminds me that we didn’t all start our walk of faith there. that at some point we needed to be reminded that we are all in need of a Savior. we need to be broken so that we can feel what its like to really soar in freedom with Him.

today i am pretty giddy about who i get to share with you. i have to admit i don’t like to share her with many….cause i just love so much. she has known what it is like to be broken and learning again to soar. she is an accomplished author, speaker, mother and one of the best people on the planet. i am humbled that i get to call her friend….please welcome beth.

I sat on the couch between two of my dearest friends.  Every ounce of energy had been taken from me.  I had just endured a three hour argument that had been filled with sobbing, accusations, and much pleading.  I had been crying so hard that I was light-headed through much of the conversation, and I was about to agree to things that I later would have regretted.  Something in me knew that I needed to leave and go to my friend’s house, so I did.

That was straw number two thousand and seventeen.  The camel’s back had been broken years ago, but I had, up to that point, just kept prodding the camel along.  This time though I knew.  The looks of utter concern on the faces of my friends told me all I needed to know.  There was no level below this.  I had finally hit my bottom.  I was completely and radically broken.

In the moments and days following that horrible episode, where I had to move out of shock and figure out what comes next, I knew that I would never go back.  It was over.  It wasn’t even so much that the relationship was irretrievably broken, but I was.  I was finished.  I had given everything, I had splayed out my heart, I had bent over backwards and discarded my every feeling and desire and gut instinct, and it was all for nothing but more pain. 

There was no going back.  I could only go forward, dragging myself into a future that I couldn’t picture.

Sometimes the only way we can move into our future is to burn down our past.  And sometimes the only way we can have the courage to do that is when we’ve been so torn to pieces, so destroyed, that there is nothing left to repair, that there is no way to put back together all that’s disintegrated.

I’ve never been so broken in my entire life.  I’ve never been so scared.  And I’ve never been so open and free.