It's never fun to be put into a position out of your own control! A few weeks ago, I broke my thumb. Now I could give a great many stories of how it happened but the fact remains that it is broken. Broken...I am broken. This has been a whole new experience for me, this is my first broken bone ever! And I am not handling it well. But isn't this true of any time that we find ourselves broken whether physically or emotionally?
When the doctor at the ER told me after seeing the ex-rays that it was broken, I cried and thought of everything that I would no longer be able to do flashed through my mind...how was I going to finish the school year, how was I going to clean my classroom, how was I going to drive and get where I needed to go, what about swimming (there goes my summer), how am i going to cut my steak.......why, why did this have to happen? And then came the overwhelming feeling of self-pity. Poor me, I would no longer be able to function correctly in the world without both limbs. I know that this seems all a bit dramatic, but isn't this how we truly feel when we are broken in some sense? That we are damaged and that there is no hope.
And yet, we somehow come to grips eventually with the brokenness but still have to struggle with the limitations set upon us until the healing is done. This also can be either physical or emotional. Physically, i find myself unable to do things without pain. Emotionally, i struggle with trying to do things myself so that I don't have to ask for help. I Do Not like the limitations that I find myself with. (On a side note, I may be venting a bit here, but hopefully you can relate or have been through the same struggles.) I hate having to be careful on a daily basis like it could make things worse...I hate not being able to be active like in sports, running, swimming....I hate the fact that I have to wear a plastic bag over my arm in the shower....I hate that it actually makes me perspire getting dressed and ready for the day. I just want to scream sometimes!
And the asking for help thing...well, pride comes before a fall. And fall you inevitably do! For some reason we (I) feel that asking for help is a sign of weakness. If I have to ask for help than I am unable to do the task at hand myself. But isn't that the point of asking for help...it's because we can't do certain things ourselves!
God is our loving Father and does not want to see us struggle or in pain. His love for us is so deep that is own heart breaks for us when we are in distress. He wants to pick us up, dust us off and hold us close! Why do we resist? Why do we say, back up, I can do this....I need to do this myself? Instead of asking for help? I don't understand it much myself and I am 100 % guilty of this very thing! What I do know is that God waits with open arms and pleads with us to see that He is there to show us the way when we ask...
Psalm 147:3 says "He heals the brokenhearted and binds their wounds."
Broken can mean a great many things...but however broken, God can and Will heal the wound! What we have to do is humble our pride and ask for him to help! Matthew 6:8 says that God knows what we need before we ask!
Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened unto you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him that knocks, the door will be opened."
Limitations aren't meant to limit us...interesting concept. Limitations are a made so that we can learn to rely on the only one who can sustain us!
Psalm 54:4 "Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me."
So what if I can't use my hand completely? So what if there is a wound in my heart from a past experience? There are so many possible restrictions that can be placed on us at any time whether we want or expect it. So, are we really going to live in self
pity or struggling with doing things ourselves when in the long run it would do us good to ask for help? It would do us good to ask. God wants the good for us. Romans 8:28 - And we know that it all things God works for the good of those who love him...
It shouldn't matter the brokenness or limitations we find ourselves with on a yearly, monthly, or daily basis. Does that mean that it is easy...absolutely not (it sure was not easy typing this blog with one hand). But We must choose to Not do it alone even if we think that we are fully capable of it! Broken and Limited we walk with Jesus!
