On brokenness, beauty, and writer's block

To write is to give. To be flat out, all out generous with your story. To wrap up your words, your life, your failings, your most miserable moments and your wild and wonderful discoveries and give them to somebody else. To share them with someone, to encourage someone, to re-gift what have been the hardest parts of your story in ways that make other people feel they are not alone.
Lisa-Jo, The Gypsy Mama

I don't like the word vulnerable.

In fact, I hate it as much as one can hate a word. I like being vulnerable even less. In almost three years of blogging here I've learned something about myself. Pouring through old posts, I've taught, admonished, and quoted scripture, but these are my ruse. They are well worn camouflage that I wear to hide behind. I peak out rarely, always reverting back inward because..

I don't want you to see me, the real me. I want you to see someone who is put together all the time. I want you to see someone with a perfect marriage. I want you to see my mask and no deeper, because if you did, I'm afraid you may not like what you see. I'm afraid you'd judge me. You might see someone who struggles with insecurity and pain, despair and longing.

You might see that I'm broken.

And yet, brokenness is the very thing we all need, this upside down Kingdom that plays the world a fool; the last shall be first, lose your life to find it, the foolish shall confound the wise, and most importantly being broken is the gateway to wholeness.

Broken like the women at the well, the leper, the adulteress.

Broken in a continual sense, one that isn't fixed by skipping off into the sunset happily-ever-after, but the daily grind of continually accepting grace from a God who gives so freely.

There is beauty in the chaos, beauty in the brokenness.

We women, we tend to wear a mask, a facade that says we're okay, and in doing so we teach other women to pick up their masks, to pretend. What relief when we can peer through someone else's life enough to know that we are not alone, that others have struggled before us.

What if we could put all the masks down and just be real? What if we refused to pretend anymore?

Broken....but beautiful, our generation's heart-cry.

Psalm 34:18
If your heart is broken, you'll find God right there