Gracefully Broken

Rewritten/adapted by Dawn Kelley, original author unknown

Just the other night, I was in a long line at a local store when I noticed a mother with two children behind me. One of the children was just a toddler and the other was older, probably in his early teens. The older brother had a pack of glow sticks and the baby began toddling towards his brother, crying, and reaching for the toys. The mother took the pack, opened it, and gave one to the baby which stopped his tears. He starting waving it around and smiling as he walked, but then, the bigger boy took the stick from him and the baby started screaming again. Just as the mother was about to fuss at the older child, the big brother bent the glow stick to release the luminescence and handed it back to the baby. The baby noticed that the stick was now glowing and his brother said, “I had to break it so you could get the full effect from it.” This little baby was happy swinging an “unbroken” glow stick around in the air because he did not understand the stick was created to glow. As I left the store with my purchases, l could hear God saying to me, “I had to break you to show you why I created you. You had to go through it so you could fulfill your purpose.”

Too often, we are content with just “being,” but God has chosen us to glow for Him which means being “broken” by Him.  We have to get sick.  We have to lose a job.  We have to go through divorce.  We have to bury our spouse, our parents, our best friend, our children because God is breaking us.  But… when the breaking is done, we will be able to see the reason for which we were created: to glow as we reflect the image of His Son.

But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
    and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
    he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
    and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.

Isaiah 53:10, NLT

So when you see the broken glowing, understand they have been broken; but they are now glowing because of His Grace and Mercy!!!