Finding Acceptance In The Suffering
By Isabelle Lundin
When reading her autobiography, I couldn’t believe the multitude of ways St. Teresa of Avila called herself a “miserable sinner,” referring to herself as “wretched” and “wicked.” Similarly, St. Faustina recounted how “despite the peace in [her] soul, [she fights] a continuous battle with the enemy of [her] soul.” These statements seem hard to believe when you begin to consider the amazing, holy lives these women lived. But they were not victims of over-scrupulousness or incessant self-degradation; their hearts were so enflamed and enjoined to God that they were hyper-aware of how broken they were.
I suddenly realized that I was terrified of being broken. I was terrified of being broken because I was terrified of having to be put back together again. I’ve been through tough breakups with boys I thought I would marry, been cast aside by people who I thought were my friends, and many other sufferings of this life, and despite overcoming all those things by the grace of God, regaining peace and contentment is hard work. No wonder Humpty-Dumpty needed all those horses and all the king’s men to help put him back together again—it is exhausting to keep bouncing back, trial after trial.
Our culture hates brokenness, so much so that it now hates the act of being put back together and the act of healing. Get ghosted by that guy you really liked? Just get over it. Didn’t get invited to a gathering of all your friends? They didn’t matter anyway. Got dumped by the guy you thought was the one? You don’t need anyone but yourself; put on something hot and move on. It’s so much easier to just never get hurt than to heal from hurt.
I think my heart had begun to think that way. I didn’t want to accept my brokenness because healing from hurt is sometimes just as painful, especially since our culture of feminism tells us we should be able to put ourselves back together all on our own. But Jesus, looking down at us from the agony of his cross, or gazing back at us from the monstrance, offers us a different solution.
It is okay that I am broken. It is okay that I’m terrified of putting myself back together. But I would never be able to do it myself anyways, and God has never expected any of us to do this on our own. Even the greatest saints knew this, despite how obedient they were to God’s will. However, they feared their breaking their relationship with God infinitely more than they feared the brokenness in themselves.
Even if I am plagued by the same sins for the rest of my life, I will bring my brokenness to the Father. I will never be perfect, nor will I ever be strong enough to fix my brokenness, but because as long as I continue to entrust myself to Him, I will always be refined and perfected by the gentle hands of the Master Artist.
