From the Mugs: Hope for the Too-Broken

God is sovereign, and His plans are never thwarted.

It's kind of a long story.

I have a favorite coffee mug. I bought it at a Tenth Avenue North concert last summer, and I managed to knock it against the car door and break off the handle even before we left the parking lot. It left a pretty jagged edge. I had to be careful how I handled it. Finally I got some superglue and stuck it back together, but it's pretty obvious where it was broken.

I feel like that a lot. There are broken things in me. I give in to despair quickly and deeply. I'm afraid of talking to people because I'm awful at conversations. Social situations have never been easy for me. Honesty has never been easy for me. I bottle my emotions until they eat away at me.

I look at myself, and I see too broken to be useful. 

I hide from my broken places (sometimes I call them weaknesses). I laugh at everything so no one will know that I'm walking through a fog I just can't shake, and I have been for a long time. I'm super friendly so no one will know that I'm terrified of running out of things to say. I know a lot of big theological and psychological words so I can use them when all I really want to say is "it hurts and I can't make it stop".

And yet, God did something crazy and called me to Asia. I am most likely one of the least qualified, least ready, least "missionary-esque" people to ever be called to missions. But when you have a God encounter like I had, you don't say no.

Or so I kept telling myself as I inched further and further away.

See, I've been playing the prodigal for a while, even though I'd never admit it (except on the internet for everyone to see). I left for college and all the beautiful calling-affirming things I expected to happen, well, didn't. I was disappointed.

I felt like God had failed me, and my faith quickly dwindled until I was unsure it was even there. 
After a few months of this, I was pretty sure there was no way back for me. I turned other places, looking for something to fill the gap I felt like He'd left. But everywhere I ran, I ran into myself, and I didn't like what I saw.

In the words of J.S. Park,

"I've been to the bottom, when everyone else has left and I was alone with my hurt in the silence. I've been at the place where I knew all the right theology but none of it reached me. 

In this pit, I found a silence even deeper still. It was called honesty, and in that place, He was the only one there. I cried out, and to my surprise, so did He."

When I stopped fighting, put down my accusations and laid out my heart, as ugly and raw as it was, He asked me to listen. So I did.

And in that moment, He offered me grace.

I wanted to say no. I knew I didn't deserve it. I'd been like Asaph in Psalm 73, bitter and ignorant. My pride was the only thing bigger than my selfishness. I asked Him why He would take me back, why He would offer me this when He knew that I'd probably just take advantage of it again and throw it all away.  Why redeem me?

"Isn't redeeming what I love to do? Don't you see this is all part of the plan?"

My wandering never surprises Him. Even since the fall, He knows our rebellion before we do. He could have stopped us, but He didn't because He loves to redeem. He loves to save, and I need to get it in my stubborn heart that saving is His job, not mine. I can't fix myself. I can't do anything with these jagged edges.

Only He can heal, so I have to give up this ridiculous fight and realize that I can't do this. Asia never needs me, but I've said from the beginning that I'm not really a Goer, all I can do is send people His way.

And if He's told me to go, despite all the reasons I say I shouldn't, doesn't He know best? 

If He's placed me at this school, in the middle of all the pain and confusion and broken places, doesn't He know best? Doesn't He have a reason? The nights I've spent hopeless and the days I've spent aimless and the lonely holes in my heart, aren't they going to be used for good? Don't they have a purpose?

I don't want to share these parts, the broken ones, but He's teaching me to see His sovereignty in all places, even though it's painful.

This mug still holds coffee. It does its job. It's still my favorite because it's cracked, not in spite of it.

My mess never stopped His mission. My jagged edges never stopped His hand. So here's hope; God is God, and always will be. When I am unfaithful, He is faithful. 

So I will believe again- He knows best.