Beautiful Brokenness

Break our hearts God. I hear the rushing wind of the Spirit. I feel the refreshing rains coming closer – closer still. How close will we allow our Beloved? How close will we go to Him? Are we broken? Are we heart-sick for our Beloved? The weightiness of His Presence I long to hold in my vessel, my jar of clay. Wasn’t I made for this? To carry this all-surpassing power in the jar of me?

When a potter spins a pot on the wheel, the pot will take on many variations in its shape, size and strength. Often the flexible clay pot will break, even while the careful potter holds it gently in his fingers. The pot is like a living thing as it rises and forms. I am a pot in the Potter’s hands. Water has to be continually added to a spinning pot. Often the rhythm is fast and the shaping seems to move quickly and smoothly. Other times, the rhythm is slower and the pressure of the forming is more intense and I feel as though I will fall apart, but being in the Potter’s hands gives me assurance that even if I experience brokenness, he will put me back together and shape me into His perfect design. A pot breaking on the wheel can inspire a new shape, a new design. The Master Potter never wastes any clay. He reshapes, redesigns, and makes masterpieces out of fallen clay.

The woman of Bethany who poured on Jesus the perfume from her alabaster box knew something of brokenness. She was an out-cast. She had been looked down on, rejected and dismissed. She lived in shame and dishonor. She had lived a sinful life. She knew the brokenness sin brings – the death that robs one of life. How was she, the reject, allowed into the Pharisee’s house? My guess is that her shame gave her access to certain places. The ones who dishonor others always allow the rejects to come around. That day, rather than being there for dishonorable purposes, she had come to bestow honor on the Most Honorable One. She held one thing of honor still within her possession. No one could take away her alabaster box – it was the one thing she had reserved that was pure and valuable. She had bought the costly perfume. She had paid for it and gathered it within that alabaster jar. It was hers alone to give. She had saved this for the man she would marry. Through all the shameful brokenness, she held onto the belief that one day a man would actually honor her, would adore her, and would be the love of her life.

She observed as Jesus came into the house. His beauty filled the room. She had seen him in the streets among the people. She had heard him teach and saw the way he poured out a supernatural love to everyone who looked to him. This is why she had come with her alabaster box – she had decided that no man she would ever meet could compare to the honor and beauty, strength, and love she had seen in Jesus. She had to give him her jar of perfume – nothing else mattered but to honor him with the only thing she had that was honorable. If she never overcame her life of brokenness and shame, she would have at least done this one thing for this Honorable One. Somehow she knew that would be enough to last a lifetime.

Simon, the Pharisee seemed to greet everyone of importance with the utmost honor, kissing cheeks - yet he did not honor Jesus– did not really acknowledge him. The sinful woman caught a glimpse of Jesus meekly overlooking the projected offense. He was dishonored, yet still a picture of soft strength. She noticed the dishonor and it grieved her. She watched as Jesus was seated at the table, though no one had offered him water to wash his dusty feet. How could Simon not offer any water? Why would he want Jesus to recline there at the table with dirty feet? She thought of her shame – her dirtiness – and how it seemed that no water could wash that off her feet. Every step she took, it followed her. It left a smear everywhere she went. She felt the breaking open – the shame – the fear and grief. But then, she looked back to Jesus, and even though His feet were dusty, his radiance was still astounding. His beauty permeated the atmosphere and she knew she had to get closer. At all costs, she had to give Him her gift.

The closer she moved toward him, realizing the stares and whispers from everyone in the room were intensifying, she still yet could not turn from Him. She had to pour out her honor. She had to love Jesus – in that very moment – in that difficult place. She felt her own brokenness, and like never before she wanted to be rid of it. Her eyes focused on Jesus as he turned to stare through to her soul. As she held her jar of perfume, which had not yet been broken open, she seemed to smell a new sweetness in the air. “ Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out.” (Song of Songs 1:3) The atmosphere was changing! She felt her whole world was shifting with each step toward him. She noticed her brokenness was shifting. Shame was dropping off with each step.

A new kind of brokenness began to resonate within her. The weighty lightness of the new brokenness softly rent the fibers of her heart. She was overwhelmed. Jesus was the Most Honorable One and she was sweetly broken open at the realization that he was not backing away from her – that he even seemed to long for her to come closer. She began to weep at his kindness, though she could not look away from him. This was a new brokenness: a brokenness which brought life; a brokenness that was cleansing and reshaping her rather than boxing her into a grave of shame. She knew she was worthy of His love… and that… she had never felt from any other man. She tenderly and joyfully broke her perfume box.

In Song of Solomon, the bride calls out for her bridegroom. He is not near her and she is heart-sick. She says, “Daughters of Jerusalem, tell me if you find him… for I am love-sick; I am faint with love.” She longs for the lover of her soul. She goes running frantically through the streets, searching for him. Nothing else matters to her but to be with him. This is beautiful brokenness. “I will search for the one my heart loves.” (Song of Solomon 3:2) This is the heart-rending ache that will draw us closer and closer to our Beloved, Jesus. How much do we long for Him? Are we love-sick?

Do we search after Jesus, our bridegroom, like the bride in Song of Songs? Do we seek Him? David, in Psalm 63, said, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Spiritually, a dry land is a place where there is no refreshing. A desert, if you will – a place where the heat of circumstances, loss, burdens, and sin dries up the sweetness of life. The death that robs life and pushes us into the grave of shame dwells in a dry place.

The bride in The Appalachian Mountains is wondering around in a dry place.

Is she thirsty yet?

Even as the streams of our mountains are being eradicated by the overburden of blown-up mountain-top beauty through the destruction of Mountain Top Removal, likewise, our spiritual land is becoming more and more dusty and dry and void of refreshing water. Where there is no water, I thirst for You. My soul thirsts for you, O God. Our land is weary. Break our hearts, God. We need Your Water.

Like the clay pot on the wheel, we need the pouring of the water to keep us from breaking in dryness. How many times must we be reshaped and put back on the wheel because of our unredeemed brokenness? May we find a new brokenness – the brokenness that leads to true repentance, not just survival – the brokenness that causes us to evermore crave our Beloved. We in the mountains should cry out to find our Beloved, the one who brings refreshing. The one who is Living Water. “Who is this coming up from the desert, leaning on her Beloved?” (Song of Songs 8:5) She is the bride who says, “When I found the one my heart loves… I held Him and I would not let him go.” (Song of Songs 3:4)

Psalm 65 is my prayer and my proclamation for these Appalachian Mountains. “(Father), You care for the land and water it, you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers… the grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows…and the valleys… shout for joy and sing.” May we sing a new song… a song of beautiful brokenness… a song of Joy!