I am broken, but don't require fixing

Was sitting in church listening to the sermon and contemplating all that has happened in the past few months of my life. The sermon this past Sunday was addressing those times when we are sure we are right and those times when we need to be nudged out of our comfort zone. It was the latter of these things that lead me to this post's title "I am broken, but I don't require fixing".

I AM BROKEN

Life has thrown me a series of curve balls
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There are times in our lives when something, someone, some situation comes along that pushes or nudges us out of our comfort zone. There are times when we have our notions challenged such that we need to stop and contemplate them beyond just a cursory "Oh isn't that interesting..." This sermon was one of those times for me as I began to realize that my current life state was "Broken" but broken by the situation/choice such that it doesn't require fixing. I am broken in a way that doesn't require someone to come along and lift me up and dust me off. I am broken because what I thought was true, or the things that modeled my world have been disproved. I am broken in a way that allows me to stop and consider what about my world model was wrong. I am broken in a way that provides the opportunity to change how I go about moving forward in the world. For me I have found the following to be my 'Broken' process.

Mourning the Broken

Large life events all have a process that they will trigger and that process may be long or short. It is hard to tell in advance how long a given event may cause one to feel that they are in mourning but it is an important aspect of being broken I believe. In the cases where I have been broken in my life there is always a feeling of loss. The loss can be physical - meaning someone passing or perhaps the lost of a possession, or something emotional like a good friend moving far away or someone you once talked to all the time falling out of touch. Time has to be taken to consider the loss what impact it has had and why has it had that impact in order to attempt to move forward from it. Cry, laugh, smile, focus on the content of the event so that you can feel it fully. In order to mourn it properly you have to be able to see it fully for a moment in your life and its meaning to you. In order to mourn you have to be able to see what needs of your own that thing, that person was filling for you.

Picking up the pieces

As you consider in your mourning what is it that is left behind? What can I take from what has happened? Sometimes you may even be tempted to ask why me? Coming forward from a position of brokenness requires, I believe, that you be able to look at your own reaction to what has happened and understand why you have reacted in a given way. Are you angry? Are you sad? Are you feeling a mix of different emotions? Why are those emotions the ones that have arisen in the current broken state. Maybe you are upset with yourself for feeling, maybe you are upset with some other external factor for how it is or how another individual appears to feel. All of these things, all of these questions and their answers are part and parcel to being broken. Like looking at a bit of sea glass carefully and wondering how it came to be at your feet - each instance and question above needs similar scrutiny.

I don't need fixing

In short I don't need fixing - I need support. I need to be able to put the situations of my life into words, feelings and context that I understand. Moving forward, one step at a time, requires an ability to process without stuffing or ignoring the situation that created the brokenness. Being broken, I think, is like having a surgery scar but on your psyche ... its permanent and part of the story of your life. Scars don't require fixing - just time to heal.

Closing

While I was writing this post originally (now a long time ago in relative terms) I found the following quote:

Treat things as "habit not hill." Meaning excellence is a minute-at-a-time habit, not a hill to climb. Same is true of being less broken, it's a minute at a time habit to improve, not a hill you are standing at the bottom of looking up at the top saying "I need to climb THIS?".