Broken

Today I've been experiencing another small wave of grief over Benjamin's multiple delays. A little while ago some phrases from a poem I wrote back in 2002 suddenly flooded my mind. The poem is called "Broken," and I wrote it during an especially difficult time in my college years. I was amazed at how words that were written so many years back, in a different set of circumstances, before I had even met my husband, could speak so directly to the season of life I find myself in now. There are places in God's heart that can only be discovered in the midst of surrendered pain. It is a privilege to love my son in the midst of pain, and it is an even greater privilege to love my God on the days when it feels my heart could break...

Broken
My defeated, grieving heart
Eyes stained red with tears
Yet on Your altar of grace
I have chosen to lay down my fears
My dreams I had clutched so tightly
The heart is so deceiving
Thinking I knew the way to walk
I kept myself believing
That the truth I had perceived
Must be the only way
When the true desire of Your heart
Is for me to humbly pray
What I had seen as beauty
You knew could soon be shaken
In love You'll never rest
Until I am completely taken
Into the deepness of Your heart
Where my identity is lost
In the fullness of Your Grace
And the promise of the Cross
My broken pieces belong to You
Do with them what You will
And as You overtake me
In Your peace may I be still
This life is Yours, not mine
You are the Lord of all
Direct my path with every step
And catch me when I fall
Burn away myself
Until all is stripped away
May I live in brokeness
Each and every day
For there true beauty resides
Your richness fills my soul
As I step into Your Presence
I know I have been made whole
Oh, my precious Jesus
Your face is all I seek
I rejoice that You are strong
Every place that I am weak
I long to stand before You
I desire favor in Your eyes
Guard me from the enemy
Free from all of his lies
One day I will be with You
I'll gaze into Your face
I ache to feel the fullness
Of Your tender, intimate embrace
But until that day arrives
You are my daily food
Please take my broken pieces
And feed a multitude
So that I may stand before You
Knowing I did not live in vain
For You are a Sovereign God
And I surrender to You my pain
That You may form beauty from ashes
And build within me a fire
That spreads out to those around me
As I burn with Your desire