Broken Places

Broken Places

T. Suzanne Eller

I knew Shana had secrets. I pressed gently, but she shied away. I prayed she would tell me when she was ready.

The phone call finally came.

“Can you come get me?”

When I arrived, I found her battered, and we drove to get medical help. She spilled her secrets on the way. Her mother was often beaten. She and her siblings were secondary targets. Leaving home had been her only escape. She had returned to visit, only to find her brother being abused. She stepped in and crushing blows followed. Her father only stopped when she begged for her life.

Shana came to live with us until she found a safer environment. In those two months, we often stayed up late talking. Her greatest fear was that she would always feel broken.

The apostle Paul also knew what it was to be bruised and battered. He was wrongly imprisoned and beaten—multiple times. He once described himself as a chipped clay jar, saying, “We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:9 NLT). Paul had discovered something valuable. There was a light inside that fractured jar healing the hurting places on the interior, then shining through the broken places so the world could see.

That treasure, nestled in the center of the clay, was Jesus.

As time passed, Shana began to see herself through that light. She wasn’t just a battered daughter; she was a woman with purpose. The wounds inflicted by her earthly father took time to heal, but as they did, she was led to share her story. Her message is this:

You are loved.

You are made for more than this.

God can and will heal the broken parts of your heart.

Today Shana is a mom and a wife. The treasure inside this woman illuminates through the once-broken places in a powerful way. She has adopted a son and fostered other children who came to her home with their own broken places, hoping to love them into wholeness. Children trust her because she understands their pain, but also because of the light and love they see inside her.

Maybe you were bruised by an earthly parent’s words or actions. May I tell you something? Those words, those actions, do not define you.

There are thousands, like Shana, like me, who were once chipped and broken. God blazed His light through our cracks, not just healing us, but allowing His light to lead others into His loving arms.

God sees you. He loves you. He’s reaching out to make you whole again.

Dear Lord, I can’t change what happened to me, but I can open my heart to the treasure of You. You are the light in my darkness. Heal my brokenness from the inside out. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

REMEMBER

Consider a piece of mosaic art. Such vivid colors. Such startling patterns. A pile of broken tiles, when placed in the Master’s hand, becomes a new creation. God can make your broken places whole.

REFLECT

In what ways has God already taken your broken pieces and made them beautiful?

RESPOND

Read Ephesians 1:18. Make this paraphrased Scripture your prayer today: I pray that my heart will be flooded with light so that I can understand the confident hope Christ has given to me, for He has called me as His own to a rich and glorious inheritance.

POWER VERSES

Psalm 147:3; Psalm 34:18