Broken Is Better — Here’s Why

Broken Is Better — Here’s Why

Broken is better.

Guest blogger Suzanne Holland — see her page HERE on Heart2Heart Counseling Directory — brings home the truth that your reponse to life’s problems is what matters. And a biblically healthy response is what ultimately brings glory to God. Her article appeared first here and is used with permission. –LAM

In This Life, You Will Have Trouble

Life is full of pain and suffering. In a world of uncertainty, there is only one sure thing: You will have trouble.

Yet man is born to trouble
    as surely as sparks fly upward. (Job 5:7).

The only thing that is optional is your response to that trouble. So you have many choices when it comes to how you respond emotionally to pain and suffering in your life. Now I’d like to talk about a few of those, some or all of which you may have chosen in your time of trial. Then I’d like to share a choice that is always better.

Respond with Fear

First, you can respond to your pain with fear. If you have a chronic or debilitating illness, you may be fearful of a new or worsening pain or symptom. And you may begin to wonder what you will do if it continues to get worse.

How will you cope? Who will take care of you? What will you do when you can’t do what you need to do? Fear of increased pain gangs up with panic about the future. Pretty soon, you have bullied yourself into a fear response. This fear drives you more into yourself, and away from God. (For Help for Fear, contact Lucy. She’s been there and tossed the T-shirt.)

broken

Respond in Anger

Or, you may choose to respond in anger, telling yourself that you don’t deserve this, and that it’s not fair.

This response seems more powerful than fear. Instead of cowering in a trembling heap, you shake your fist at your condition, your doctor, or maybe even at God. This anger gives you a false sense of empowerment from within, and causes you to think that you don’t need God’s power. But this puts distance between you and your great High Priest.

Respond with Despair

A third response that is common among suffering believers is despair. Maybe you’ve been knocked down many times, but have managed, by the grace of God, to get back up again. Now, after many TKOs, you have given up. You just don’t have the fight in you anymore.

Somewhere along the way, you started looking to your own strength for the next round. But now that strength is spent. You can’t get up again, and you really don’t even want to. You are done.

Risk Bitterness

All of these responses can lead us to one very dangerous place: Bitterness. A person who is bitter has probably been through all three of these responses, and possibly several others, before arriving at bitterness. When these fleshly attitudes go unchecked, they inevitably lead us to a place where we have little or no faith in God, and we really don’t care.

We are disappointed, angry, and without hope. We nurture and feed grudges against those who have harmed us, and we curse God, and anyone else, who has denied us what we believe we are entitled to. This is bitterness.

According to Isaiah 43:7, we were created for God’s glory.

…everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.

If this paragraph describes you, ask yourself, “How does my bitterness glorify God?” If you’re honest, you will have to confess that your bitterness does not, and could never, bring glory to God. In fact, if bitterness persists, and you are just fine with it, you might want to examine whether or not you are even a believer.

A Better Alternative

However, there is another alternative. Rather than becoming bitter, we can confess and embrace the fact that we are broken. Our body is broken. Our heart is broken. We have no strength or power left to fight what God is doing through our trial.

We must submit to His will for us, surrendering our desire to control our situation. So we must hand over our pain, our suffering, our fear, anger, and despair to Him.

He alone is able to handle them. He loves us, and desires to make us more like Him. And he wants to use this pain to bring us into His arms. He wants to take our heavy burden of fear, anger, and despair, and exchange it for His light, easy one.

Plea for Understanding

Dear sister in Christ, you are weak. If you have convinced yourself otherwise, you are deceived. (Jeremiah 17:9). I know you may not like to hear that you’re weak and broken, but please believe me when I say that this is a good thing!

Hear the words of the apostle Paul, who suffered so many things for the sake of the Gospel:

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

This statement follows Paul’s description of his pleading with the Lord to remove the thorn in his flesh. God’s answer?

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Do you want God’s perfect strength in your battle against pain and the heartache that comes with it? Do you believe that God’s grace is sufficient for you?

Then embrace your weakness, and give up your fear, anger, despair, and bitterness.

God has given you your weakness as a gift, to help you bring glory to His great name and to make you more like His precious Son! Give in to fear, anger, and despair, and you will be bullied, powerless, and hopeless. Once you get there, you are standing at the doorstep of bitterness.

Turn from these things, my friend, and be broken. Broken is better.

Counseling Hearts to Hope,

SUICIDE: Ways to Help Prevent Tragedy

Suicide. It’s nearly impossible to understand, but there are ways to help prevent it. This article, written by Sherry Allchin, MA, and listed on Heart2Heart Counselor Directory, gives hope to any counselor or a family member who provides care to a suicidal person. This article appeared first on Biblcal Counselor Center’s website and is used with permission. 

NOTE: Always dial 911 immediately if you suspect

someone has attempted suicide or plans to attempt suicide!

hope icon

Prevention strategies don’t always work. Someone who’s determined to die sometimes is “successful” and dies. It’s sad, tragic. 

A while back,, I talked with a parent whose teen is struggling. Her 15-year-old friend killed himself after several years of bullying by other teens at school.

Could his death been prevented?

Why would a person we love want to end their life?

And what is our responsibility to help and how can we?

The Why of Suicide

When someone attempts suicide, it is not really that they want to die, but rather that they just don’t know how to live and have lost all hope that life will get any better. They have chosen to take matters into their own hands to end the pain they feel.

We as family and friends, or as counselors, can make a world of difference by our responses to their struggles and by knowing the warning signs. We may not save everyone from suicide, but if we can save even one, it’s worth finishing this blog post. Share it with your friends and family.

Grim Suicide Statistics

Did you know that suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States? That’s one death by suicide every 15 minutes! It is the third leading cause of death between the ages of 15 to 24 years, with half a million teenagers attempting suicide. More than 5,000 seniors kill themselves annually.

What Are Some Warning Signs?

A person considering suicide often shows several (though not all) of these warning signs.

  • Talking about dying. Giving away valued items. When a person talks about suicide or death or makes statements like “I wish I had never been born,” and starts to give away things they have valued, or planning for the care of pets or dependents, be alert and ask more questions.
  • Changes in habits. Burst of energy. Withdrawal. Recklessness. Another clue is a change in eating, sleeping or grooming habits, or a sudden burst of energy and joy from someone who has been depressed for a long time. This energy burst may indicate that a suicide decision has been made and a calm before the storm). Also be alert to the withdrawal from favorite people or activities, or being reckless with dangerous activities.
  • Other warning signs. Other high-risk indicators includes a history of drug or alcohol use, physical or sexual abuse, or being in some kind of trouble. When there is a history of depression and antidepressant drugs are given, some people have the side effect of suicidal desires. Also, those who have previously attempted suicide or who have a close friend or relative that has committed suicide are more likely to try.

How to Help Prevent Suicide

Encourage the person to talk to you and really listen (James 1:19, 20) to determine suicidal intent. The more detailed their plan and the more access they have to their method of choice, the more likely they will follow through. Be compassionate as you hear their pain and suffering (Lamentations 3:22-24).

The faithful love of the Lord never ends![b]
    His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
    therefore, I will hope in him!” Lamentations 3:23

Remember suicide is not so much about wanting to die as it is not knowing how to live with the problem. So they must gain a sense of hope, a reason to live, a hope that there is a solution to what to them seems unsolvable (1 Corinthians 10:13).

If you don’t know how to help them, take them to someone who can help find that solution. A pastor, school guidance counselor, a biblical counselor, and a doctor or the hospital ER are a few who can often help.

The book of Ecclesiastes shows us that life apart of God is not worth living. Each one of us must ultimately come to a place of trusting Christ as their personal savior and starting to grow in their trusting God’s Word for answers to their life problems. Help them see that suffering is a part of God’s will to refine us in Christ, with the goal to change their focus from escape to godly contentment (Philippians 4:11-13).

As they begin to change, they will find their place of service among God’s people, helping others to realize that suicide is the ultimate act of self-love to avoid painful consequences (2 Timothy 3:1-2) and sharing the hope they have found in Christ.

Must I Get Involved?

Talking to someone about their suicidal intent does not encourage them to attempt suicide. Instead, it typically communicates interest and hope because you cared enough to ask.

Jesus commanded us to get involved with our neighbors (Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 22:36-40) and to restore a struggling brother to usefulness (Galatians 6:1-5). Trust God to use you as His instrument of hope to someone who needs help!

As righteousness leads to life, so he who pursues evil pursues it to his own death. Proverbs 11:19, ESV

Now What?

Foremost, if you suspect that someone is suicidal, call 911.

If he or she shares with you feelings of hopelessness, encourage them to talk. As mentioned, talking to someone about suicide communicates hope because you cared to ask, to notice, to help. This doesn’t encourage suicide.

If you don’t know what to say, bring the person to a pastor, biblical counselor, school guidance counselor, doctor, or the hospital ER. Tragically, someone intent of killing himself or herself will find a way to be “successful” and die.

When someone attempts suicide, it is not really that they want to die, but rather that they just don’t know how to live and have lost all hope that life will get any better.

Be a hope giver. Stand in the gap.

Counseling Heart to Hope and Healing,

Why Your To-Do List Kills You!

to-do listMay I encourage you to toss your to-do list? It burdens you. It tempts you toward pride, if you get it done on time. Your list tempts you to despair if you don’t. It draws you farther from God. It kills you.

You know the killer to-do list, don’t you? It’s the one that intimates you’re not good enough. That you’re not pretty enough, or smart enough, or fit enough, or organized enough, or accomplished enough. On my to-do list for today are “go for a walk,” “send thank yous to banquet volunteers,” “write posts” (including this one. . .up to three right now) as well as 11 more work-related tasks. So far, I have four checked off and am beginning to feel like a worm because it’s 3:34 p.m. and I know I’ll fail to check them off … again.

And my worm mentality could wreck the rest of my day and steal sleep if I let.

But I won’t. You see, there is something much, much, much better than slavishly checking off my to-do’s. Would you like to know what it is? In a moment, I’ll tell you.

First, may I ask, what does your to-do list usually sound like? You’ll recognize it by phrases like:

  1. “go to the gym”
  2. “sign up Emily for karate, Michael for Baby Swim, and Jess for travel basketball”
  3. “organize the bedroom closet”
  4. “do devotions”
  5. “bake cookies for church”
  6. “email Emily’s teacher about science fair”

and on and on and on to ad nauseum. You may have in stored in your head or written on paper or in your Notes app. Like I said, it’s deadly.

Your To-Do List Sucks You Dry

Your to-do’s are the death of you because when we — you and I — begin measuring our worth against them, we come up short, way short. The messages we scribble on our list come from magazine covers, billboards, Pinterest, Facebook, even church. It’s a just-one-more yes kind of existence that drains and exhausts us and leaves us wanting. And dying.

I tried Pinterest a couple years back and signed up for a few boards, but my grilled veggies never looked as delicious as hers and hers and hers, and my pumpkin display couldn’t get even close, not even in the general vicinity of beauty as hers and hers and hers. So I quit.

Have I told you I have a hangup with jealousy? Do you struggle with jealousy too. Or perhaps worry? Or shame? Or exhaustion?

My crappy solution was to withdraw, which considering my mile-long to-do list, this may have been a good thing, a breather. Oxygen is healthy, right? Still, I had wished I could have done better and berated myself. And now — as I write this and my iPhone is tinging (7 in a row, no joke, I counted), reminding me that I forgot to put “figure out a way to get a spam blocker on my phone” on my to-do list — I’m feeling wormy … again.

This despair of not-enough-ness is my death.

Rather than speaking gospel truth to myself, I am chanting worldly lies. And lies kill. Remember what Jesus said about the thief aka Satan?

The thief comes only to kill and steal and destroy. I have come to give you life, life to the full. John 10:10

The Better To-Do

The better to-do is rather simple. It is believing in your okay-ness but not because your great or anything like that but because Jesus is great and he loves you.

Your okay-ness is smack-dab in the middle of his love.

Resist the world’s call to “Do more!” “Work for God!” (yes, a worldly message in church) “Look like 30 at 50!” “Be more!”

Instead rest in God’s truth that you are blessed and forgiven and perfect in Christ. Don’t these gospel truths speak life to your soul? Do they sound too good to be true? The thing is, they are true. The thief doesn’t want you to know that or to believe that. His sick game is to steal your rest and your joy and your peace.

As Elyse Fitzpatrick says, “The gospel is about broken people who are not simply “not okay” but who are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe. And although we know in our heads that we should ignore worldly ways of thinking, it’s something we have to work at all the time.”

The gospel — this good news — is right now, just as we are (you and me and every sister in Christ), we are our Father’s beloved daughters. He cannot love you any more or any less because he is love, perfect love.

God loves you and cares for you. He is for you. But your to-do list — the one that condemns us to pride and despair — kill it, embrace your okay-ness, and rest. You’re weary, aren’t you? Why not, relax?

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

H to H signature

Find GOD's Freedom from Anxiety

 Get My FREE Anxiety Helper Pack!

Choice is a wonderful gift from God. You do NOT have to be stuck in self-focused anxiety. You can find God’s freedom.

You have Successfully Subscribed!