Hurting People Need People, Not Perfection

You are not too broken, to be useful to God. Your past, your sins, your failures? None of it renders you useless. It is, in fact, those stories and those scars that make you a powerful voice, a bright shining light and the ideal person to draw others to Him.

Let that sink in for a minute. No, really.

Hurting, broken, scarred people don't find hope in perfection. They don't find grace in carefully cultivated, social media friendly flawlessness. Often, they find the opposite. Hopelessness, shame, and 'proof' that they are too far gone to be loved by God, let alone used by Him. They see the good, the peaceful home, the successful career, the seeming lack of anything negative. The credit going to God for all of it. The testimony, such as it is, of how it is a reward for being a "good" Christian. A good steward, a faithful tither, and so on. None of it, or little of it, mirrors the broken person's story or experience. The broken person reads these things, sees the photos, and the enemy uses the opportunity to plant seeds of doubt, fear, worthlessness, and even worse. The broken person for whatever reason doesn't stop to think that the little bits and pieces they are seeing aren't the whole story, and often aren't even the whole truth.

There's an old school of thought that says to reach out to the broken and lift them up. Show them how to do things right. And we should do that, when it's applicable. Use our experience, our own journey, to help others along theirs. Teach when it's called for. Moreso though, what we can and should do? Sit with them, listen, and then act if we can. If nothing else, be a sounding board, a sympathetic ear, and an example. When there's nothing we can do in the physical world? When circumstances mean we don't have the experience to know how to help? Perhaps the best things we can do are pray for and with them, and then help them to do what is possible, while God works on the seemingly impossible.