“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23
The desperate melody of Pink’s song Just Give me a Reason sends my mind into a memory garden; past the memories of acquaintances, friends and family who sing to me the lyrics of this song, “we’re not broken just bent, we can learn to love again; we just need a reason to love again”. I sadly shake my head as their dew clouds my eyes. “Your love is not enough; a reason will never remove what is written in your scars, you’re broken not just bent”, is all I can think.
I feel the pain of a husband whose wife sought the embrace of another. He sings “We are just bent, we are not broken. We just need to learn to love again; we just need a reason to love again”. Oh, the scars!
I imagine the quiet lament of a young mother slipping away into overwhelmed neglect. She sings “we are just bent, we are not broken. I just need a reason; just a little bit will be enough; we can learn to love again.” Oh, the scars!
I grieve for a pair of empty-nesters’ loss of connection. They sing “we are just bent, we are not broken. We just need another reason; just a little bit will be enough; we can learn to love again.” Oh, the scars!
I cry out over the children scarred by their parent’s broken dreams. They sing “we are just bent, we are not broken. They just need a reason; just a little bit will be enough; they can learn to love again.” Oh, the scars!
We are a broken and scarred people.
Surrounded by brokenness, the norm makes the just bent seem a counterfeit.
Being broken, we never know what it is like just to be bent.
In our inner brokenness, we lack a visible comparison of how things should be; how things can be.
I know of no better example of our brokenness then the struggle of broken people to maintain love through a life time. There is no hope written in the scars inflicted by broken-hearted people upon the ones they’ve proclaimed to love. The best those scars can achieve is an earthly wisdom of cause and effect.
The highest state of these scarred unions is a learned state of peaceful brokenness, continually learning to love again… Oh, the scars!
I don’t think it’s sin to be broken. It’s the result of sin to be broken.
~John Piper
Sin has broken us all and it continues to break and re-break those who live according to the flesh. … Oh, the scars!
True hope lies not in our scars but in the scars of Another.
True love flows not from our sinful hearts but from the Source of all love.
My mind returns to that painful garden of memories and transcends it to see a forty-something man with too much gray in his beard; a man who knows his own heart; a man whose inclination is not to love his wife well. He is a man who wants his own. He wants to be made much of. He is prone to wander. He desires all the pleasures this world has to offer.
Yet, he knows what that heart produces. He fears the product of his own heart; that in his quiet cerebral world the woman he loves may one day sing “we are just bent, we are not broken. We just need a reason; just a little bit will be enough; we can learn to love again.”
He doesn’t want the scars. He knows that his marriage can be crushed just as all those he has watched crumbled.
Therefore, he clings to the good news.
We are not bound to a life of peaceful brokenness, continually learning to love again. Those who are in Christ have been set free from the shackles of sinful brokenness. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus. We have been given the Spirit of God to create in us holy fruit, pleasing and acceptable to our Father.
Consider the freedom of the glory of the children of God that comes from the union of two children of the Most High, whose eyes are not focused on each other but set upon the things of the Spirit. That is a union destined to overflow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
That is how two broken people can maintain love through a life time.
However, it starts by acknowledging that we are broken and not just bent, receiving the free gift of Jesus Christ as the payment for our sinful hearts, and daily setting our all on the One who has shown us perfect love.
PRAYER: Father, thank you for my wife. Thank you for our marriage. Lord, protect our marriage. Shepherd our hearts and keep us from wandering from you. Lord, you have been so faithful; you have been with us through every step we have taken together. Every victory has been through your power within us. Never once have we ever walked alone. Never once have you left us on our own. Lord, may our union bring glory to you through all the days you have given us together. I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen
A DEVOTED LIFE 