Lyss recounts a childhood filled with addiction, turmoil, and physical harm. Embracing her now 3-year-old son, she narrates a story filled with one painful event after another.
Brokenness had marred the 28-year-old’s life, yet today, she would tell you that it never has to be the end chapter of your life, that you too can enjoy a life marked with peace and purpose.
What is ‘brokenness’, and how does one become ‘whole’ again?
How can we who have been ‘broken’ become ‘unbroken’ living in this imperfect world?
‘Wholeness’ as some may believe, isn’t actually a state of arriving at perfection. And being broken, this feeling of being continuously crushed and subdued by excessive sorrow is also never the place we are intended to stay.
In life, we will invariably experience one form of brokenness or another, yet when we do not rightly heal and learn the path towards wholeness, we can grow empty, bitter, angry, frustrated and anxious.
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”
(Psalm 34:18)
I love the definition of wholeness here:
“A whole person rests in who and where they are in life while seeking personal growth for the benefit of self and others. A whole person will have pain, struggle and broken relationships. Wholeness is not dependent upon our circumstances. A whole person is able to find comfort within the discomfort of life.”
We never have to hide our pain, we can learn new ways of living and relating that will liberate our lives towards healing.
But firstly, why does brokenness occur?
Born into this world we all carry within us an inner vacuum for what deeply satisfies.
When we wrongly look towards people or circumstances to manufacture in us a perpetual sense of joy and satisfaction, we subconsciously fall into dysfunctional patterns of behaving and relating which deepen our own sense of vulnerability.
The mechanics of brokenness result in a negative view of self and the world, alienating us from the wider community which actually is needed to accelerate our healing. We lose hope, joy and peace, and instead, develop a maladaptive coping mechanism with drugs, alcohol and other forms of addictions.
How then would someone who is experiencing brokenness make it through in life?
Research shows that there are practical strategies one can take to recover, rebuild and navigate successfully through the traumatic times of life.
Sometimes the work of repair and rebuilding takes a long time, but there is hope as we learn to carve our own way towards wholeness and healing.
Here are some steps towards beginning your own process of healing.
Firstly, identify wrong beliefs and values.
Difficult times allow us the opportunity to identify, replace and reclaim negative beliefs that have been the faulty foundations upon which we build our lives. This process also allows us to accept what is and what isn’t and to claim back control of our lives where we have previously relied on others to make life work.
“I begin to see that the hand of God has never left me. He actually isn’t a distant God. He is our close Father who loves and accepts us. He will never fail us. I begin to see — all those wrong choices I made were because of my own inner brokenness. Yet in all my wandering, God has loved me through and through, and waited patiently for my return.”Lyss — “How to Live Whole Even in Brokenness”
Replacing our wrong beliefs with what God says about who we are and how we are loved builds inner resilience within us to steer away from things and people that would deepen the damage in us.
The space and freedom to learn to grow and individuate from people and circumstances we have relied on allow us the adulting process of learning to generate our own happiness, cultivate our own walk and embrace our own personality.
Secondly, take the courage to own your difficult emotions by working through them.
Giving ourselves permission to express our vulnerability in safe spaces and relationships accelerates healing. It takes a huge amount of effort, time, and energy, to process grief, but when we are able to see life for what it is and accept things for what they are, we begin to view life from a different point of view. We give ourselves permission to blossom again.
Forming new and healthy, strong connections with others tremendously help us in our healing process. Having trusted voices, being with people you feel safe about, and speaking to a trusted counsellor allows us others’ healthy perspectives which helps to birth a new vision in our lives. Hope is slowly restored through the process of re-instilling our own sense of confidence, our sense of self, and our healthy engagements with healthy relationships.
Thirdly, start the difficult work of forgiveness, remembering it is a journey you have to be at every day.
Dr Sidney and Suzanne Simon in their book ‘Forgiveness’ say that forgiveness is not forgetting, or erasing painful memories, condoning or excusing the hurtful behaviour, rather, it is an intensely personal process to let go of the past hurt.
Lyss confesses: “This forgiveness is a massive milestone in my story of separation and the legal mess that soon followed. I feel such freedom and peace, despite my ongoing challenges.”
Rewriting your inner narrative is crucial in taking responsibility for our new lives.
What we tell ourselves about what has transpired and what part we play in the downfall is important.
CS Lewis beautifully painted this truth in the Chronicles of Narnia; the fact that our story isn’t the final story.
There is a grander story at play through which we can view all the events of our lives. And when we are able to grasp this greater narrative, it will allow us to see our situation in a new and different light, in a sensible and meaningful way.
God’s story is a narrative whereby a perfect and all-powerful God longs to restore all of humanity to Himself.
It’s a love story whereby every life matters and no situation is ever too hopeless or any person far beyond repair.
It is a reality whereby the world’s brokenness can be swallowed by Christ’s completeness, and knowing that we aren’t accidental creatures in a meaningless cosmos is what infuses and interjects a painful situation with hope and purpose.
We in our pain, can believe that there is a grand narrative and a good narrator writing a better story through the space of our lives. And this Christian story can now become our story. A story that shows how we can win, how we will win, all the time.
May this thought comfort us: our ruins can be rebuilt, our brokenness can be made whole because our story is yet to be told.