Brokenness Redeemed

Do you believe your story matters?

For the longest time, I didn’t believe mine did. Until I stood up on stage in front of a hundred or so people who had watched me grow up, but never really knew me, and shared my testimony.

It’s been over four years since that faithful day. A day that Jesus used to redeem my story. Recently, I read the story of the woman at the well. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s another story of redemption and testimonies. In Jesus’ interaction with this woman, she reveals the brokenest parts of her story as a witness to Jesus’ identity as our Lord and Savior. This causes the people of her town, who likely had rejected her because of her brokenness, to come to believe. Her story brought them to Jesus, who then transformed each person to make their faith their own.

After rereading this passage, I felt inspired to share my new testimony. After all, a lot has happened in four years. Our stories are constantly being written.

But after two hours of writing, I realized I had eight pages — with much more to go — of stories from my past. I believe that remembering what Jesus has done for us is important, but sometimes focusing solely on the past undermines what He is doing in the present. It also makes it seem like we are fully healed at the end of our testimony, when in reality I know I still have much more healing to go.

So today I will share a piece of my story that is still being unwoven. I hope through this that you may feel inspired to share your story, and at the very least, know that your story has immense value.

Broken, but healing

Growing up as an only child, I often had to prove how “unselfish” I was to combat the misbelief that all only children are spoiled brats (though rest assured, I’ve met plenty of them). To be honest, I wasn’t a completely pure hearted kid. I struggled to share my toys, I didn’t want to invite over kids who weren’t in my closest circle, and I preferred receiving over giving.

I don’t believe those traits necessarily came from being an only child, but perhaps resulted more from being a child in a comfortable home. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a follower of Christ, it’s that we are thrown out of our comfort zones in order to change.

In order to protect myself from being misjudged, I built walls to block away the influence of others. However, these walls didn’t stop me from being hurt when others were unkind, and instead they filtered out all hints of criticism, including words meant to help me grow.

These walls came crashing down in the middle of my high school career when I felt utterly alone. I thought I had lost the people who meant the most to me. I did everything I could to be lovable — including giving much of what I had, monetarily and emotionally. But the person whom I believed I loved the most just couldn’t love me back.

Through various situations outside of my control, (a car accident, grief, rejection, and of course the pandemic), God drew me close to Him. By removing everything else I could rely on, He made me realize that He is the only one with the strength to protect my heart.

However, my definition of protection wasn’t entirely the same as God’s.

I entered college ready for something new after a summer of loss and self-doubt. But my fresh start ended up being another season of heartbreak and chaos when I unexpectedly had to move out of a toxic rooming situation. Many of the connections I had built quickly withered away.

A lie that had been pounding in my heart seeped its way out:

You are not lovable. You are meant to be alone.

I tried to combat this lie by building up more walls, including distancing myself from the people who really did love me, and believing that taking an alternative route with college made me a failure.

However, by now I knew the truth that I could not do this on my own. My walls shook with each panic attack. Now my weakness was visible to everyone.

God placed several people in my life, ones who embraced me and filled my heart with His love. God took me across the globe to remind me that I have gifts that need to be shared with others.

Though strengthened, I didn’t feel truly healed. Through counseling, setting boundaries, and prayer journaling, my anxiety lessened and the visible symptoms of my brokenness were much less obvious. But sometimes that feels worse, when we wonder why we feel so empty despite looking whole.

It wasn’t until last August, on the day I quit my job — an act that required trust in God to provide for me — that I finally understood my role in the healing process.

Surrendering to God.

The moment of my first surrender remains so clear for me. I was loading the dishwasher, a Spotify playlist put together by the lovely women in my Bible study humming in the background. And then “I Surrender” began to play and without even knowing the words, I sang my heart out, trusting each verse more with every repetition.

I was carried by the strength of this act — no actually, the vulnerability. I had focused so much on the strength and power of God that I forgot what true strength looks like: being open, honest, and even broken before Him.

Since then, I have learned that surrendering to God is a daily act of trust. It isn’t a one-time thing or a quick-fix solution. It’s the hardest thing we can do, apart our biggest requirement as Christians.

Love others as Jesus would love them.

But you can’t love others until you are filled with a new truth, a truth that I am still in the process of embracing:

You are lovable. You are more loved than you can ever imagine. You can’t love others well until you accept that you belong in the family of God and His love for you will carry you through all your days.

I thought that protecting my heart meant shielding it from loving others. However, withholding God’s love in this way is the most selfish act we can ever do. God’s way of protecting my heart wasn’t keeping it from heartbreak, but rather filling it with His love so that it doesn’t have to break when I share my love freely.

Side note: This isn’t to say you should stay in relationships that aren’t loving. When you accept God’s love, it means you love yourself too. Boundaries can be a huge act of love because they stop us from enabling others, prompting them to be open to changing for the better.

When we love wholeheartedly as Jesus would, it means our love isn’t dependent on the actions and responses of the people we love. It doesn’t have to be when we are fueled by God’s everlasting love rather than human validation.

We are free to love without regrets.

I am still in the process of untethering my heart from the enemy’s lies and anchoring it in God’s truth. I hope that you are on this journey as well in knowing that you are truly loved and that love is meant to be shared with the world.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

John 4:39-42