For years my husband and I have been taking broken things and making them new.But even when I was younger I felt banded together with brokenness, somehow drawn to it.  I'm not exactly sure where this came from, I suppose it's the brokenness that I've always felt fastened to; a deep desire within to restore something back to its intended purpose. It's the same reason many years ago when a sweet older lady Billi  gave me an antique teacup with a chip in it, I treasured it. She told me it was a reminder that everyone carries around some cracks and brokenness within them.This was a marker of discovering my brokenness with new eyes...It had always been with me I was just scared to uncover it. A deep seeded fear that if I exposed my brokenness others would see it and deem me somehow less valuable....that I'd end up being tossed aside.We see our brokenness as a place of rejection rather than a place where love is embraced.It's happening right now as I walk through this year of losses.As the grief rises to the surface I try to snuff it out feeling like it's been long enough that I should be over it by now. But the triggers pass through my hands as one holiday leads to another and I am reminded of the losses daily.Grieving how time has changed is a starting point to look into our losses.Every reminder is an opportunity to break vulnerability wide open even with the risk of being found out.I often wonder...What if I didn't shudder at its presence and withdraw?What if I looked at brokenness as a way to my Father's love & healing?Brokenness becomes a way to God's loving restoration rather than a place for fear. Billi's words were ringing in my ears....she didn't want me to know I was broken but that my road through brokenness was to my Father's loving arms.Wow, yes brokenness reminds us of our need for a Savior.What if we didn't live our days afraid of exposure, fearing where we are shattered and splintered, trying to hide the ugliness of our brokenness?So much brokenness inside the walls of every home...in the ministry we often get invited into other's tender spaces of their hearts and sometimes it's more than I can bear. My heart hurts with them and I so just want to stop the bleeding. But I am finding these days sometimes the bleeding slows down from just my presence....just in the showing up. Last night I was reminded of this as we split God's word wide opened and traveled through its pages, so much wealth exists in one book. A statement was shared and it cut deep within my own hurt...'Sometimes as Christians we have to believe for others what is too hard for them to believe on their own.'Yep friend this is where its at. Sometimes there's so much hurt oozing from our heart we miss the opportunity to enter into another's brokenness and show them God's faithfulness. Perhaps their hearts are just needing to be massaged with the love of our heavenly Father.Oh friends, if only we could see brokenness through the lens of our Father's eyes who sees it as an opportunity instead of a place of shame or division. Just like Joe and I love broken things, we even go to great lengths searching for these treasures, so does our heavenly Father. He sometimes travels long and exhausting roads in  pursuit of us to make us new!The same exhilarating feeling we get when we discover something placed upon a shelf and give it re-new-ed purpose--->God feels this too when one of us who are broken surrenders to His healing and restoration.Our purpose gets birthed through brokenness!My friend, Billi is gone and I may have failed to let her know how valuable her words were that day, in fact I'd do anything to get a day, a conversation back with her and tell her the impact her words and life had on me. For when she spoke her goodness over me I was so covered up in brokenness. I was the one who woke up with shame and went to bed with even more as my broken edges cut the ones closest to me. I wandered through my days striving more than receiving and yet crawled into bed every night and cried myself to sleep. You see brokenness has a way of speaking lies over us when God is trying to tell us how much He loves us. Billi had a way with her presence, it was in hers I felt truly seen and loved. That was God using her to remind me of His love. For God truly loves the brokenhearted and desires them to be brought back to life.This is what God did with His very own Son....His love got split wide open for us...broken to be made new. I sometimes wonder why I shudder at my brokenness rather than seeing it as an opportunity for my story to be told...a place for restoration...there's no better brokenness to tell the story of Jesus' love in our lives than the remnant of our brokenness that lies beneath our skin for it's here God's imprint on our lives is seen for our wounds become His story of love and restoration.