Unbroken

I was recently talking to one of my best friends and she showed me her journaled prayers for her soon to be husband and herself and her kids. She's a widow and her fiancé is divorced and suffers from PTSD. One of the words she is speaking over her family is "Unbroken." As I was meditating on this I was asking Jesus "why the word unbroken not whole?" I mean, its not even a word is it?!

At the beginning of December I went to a beautiful reflective craft evening and the host had put up a tree branch with glass baubles on it. As we were quietly reflecting on Jesus there was a dramatic clatter and the string that held the branch up had snapped. The glass baubles were shattered everywhere on the polished concrete floor, there was no making them "Unbroken."

I began to think about the brokenness in my own family, both in this generation and the past couple of generations in my living memory. We are a broken people; just among the people I love there is suicide, suicidal thoughts, homicidal tendencies, rape, incest, mental break down, addictions, depression, injury, long term illness, miscarriage, fatherlessness, marital breakdown, disconnection, strife. I'm sure most families have a similar broken past because we all live in a broken world. How good is the promise that Jesus came to give us life abundant! He not only makes us new creations, put his spirit in us, makes us one with Him, abides in us, never leaves us; He also makes us unbroken. One day at a time, moment by moment, sometimes almost unnoticed, we are changing into His image, from glory to glory.

Sometimes when I look around me I feel like life can't be put back together, we are like the glass baubles - too broken. But Jesus promise to us is to make us prosper and be in health just like our soul prospers. That means it is possible to have a soul that is prosperous, that is unbroken. He mends our broken hearts, he heals the broken hearted, he gives us a spirit of praise instead of despair, He anoints our heads with gladness.

When we look at His face and know that He is good and enter into His presence with thanksgiving, we cannot remain broken. And we become better than "mended" we become unbroken.

Psalm 100 . Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into His presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.