pretaining to brokeness.

I had to sum up my RA experience thus far for an application... (are they kidding me?) This is what I came up with: (including some edits)

My year has not been easy, in any way, but I have learned not to name the situation lightly.

Through my RA experience, I have learned what it means to be truly broken.

....and I mean fragmenting, debilitating, collapsing, ripping.

Recently, I have been hit with the flippancy with which I have used the word “broken.” It's like the way I use my debit card, which is too much regardless of how relative you see it. I say the word without truly understanding the depths of its gruesome meaning, never actually acting out of the rawness and instead expecting myself to perform as one who is whole, one who is healed. I focus on the future, on the reward, and simply rush through the life that has been given to me.

A product of my own culture, I suppose.

For some reason, I cannot recognize that I am part of a sinful humanity and so I consequently experience brokenness. I do not completely admit to it. I look, instead, immediately for the stillness after the storm.

I use the word “broken.” But I do not really intend to dwell in it and accept my imperfection. How often I said, “I feel so broken” and followed, not with a desperate cry for help but, rather with a “ but it’s good, I’m ok.”

In a way, then, I never fully understood, or divulged my complete and utter brokenness. For if I had, I would have stopped filling my broken life with expectations, and stopped assuming its cracks would keep in the water of my presumptions. I would have already been on my shattered knees instead of forcing them to hold the weight of my fast paced attempt to escape. Escape what, I do not know. My humanness, maybe?

All this to say, being an RA has compelled me to honestly accept my pitiful, pathetic, helpless state. And through this I have finally begun to feel a lift away of some sorts from the weight of the burdens on my back. By waiting through the pain, I have begun to truly experience the grace of the Lord. By beginning to accept my imperfection, and my binding, I am washed with His perfect freedom.

I don't know what this means or where this will take me. But that's the excitement of it all.

I guess.

"and Jesus said: 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.'"
Matthew 11:28

"Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel... 'I will satisfy the weary soul and every languishing soul I will replenish.'"
Jeremiah 31:23,25