BROKEN TO BE BLESSED

Broken and Blessed are two words don't seem to go together. If anything, they seem to be exact opposites. We all know what it means to be broken---to be shattered, to feel as if our entire world has fallen apart, or perhaps been blown apart. We all have times in our lives when we don't want to raise our heads off the pillow, and when we feel certain the tears will never stop flowing. Brokenness is often accompanied by emptiness-a void that cannot be filled, a sorrow that cannot be comforted, a wound for which there is no balm.

Nothing feels blessed about being broken. The most painful and difficult times of my life have been those times when I felt broken. I don't like pain, suffering, or feelings of brokenness any more than anybody else does. Certain circumstances in life hurt, at times so intensely that we think we will never heal.

One of the things I have discovered through being broken, however, is that after brokenness we can experience God's greatest blessings. After brokenness our lives can be the most fruitful and have the most purpose. The dawn after a very dark and storm-wreaked night is glorious. Feeling joy again after a period of intense mourning can be ecstatic. A blessing can come in the wake of being broken.

But this blessing comes only if we experience brokenness fully and confront why it is that God has allowed us to be broken. If we allow God to do his complete work in us, blessing will follow brokenness.

Bishop TD Jakes spoke a message on the Order of the Breaking of Bread and he brought our attention to the similarities surrounding How God deals with us as His children.

Jesus took the bread, He blessed the bread, He broke the bread, He gave the bread. Luke 24:13-31

The Taking Stage: This is the stage where He pulls you from familiar and reliable circumstances to unfamiliar and unreliable circumstances.

The Blessing Stage: This is the stage where He seems to bless everything you are doing. You seem to without effort be having everything given to you.

The Breaking Stage: This is the stage where everything seems to be a mess, and things seem to just be taken from you. It is the fellowship of His suffering.

The Giving Stage: This is the stage where you have been broken enough for Him to give you to others who need you.

What stage does God have you in right now?