Broken Wings and Broken Things

It’s amazing how God takes the broken things around me to speak to me. It’s a language I understand, the language of the broken girl trying to cover up her brokenness with another layer of makeup, a cute outfit, and a plastic smile. Going through motions with the false appearance of having it all together while on the inside you crumble wondering if anyone sees it.

Weeks ago, my daughters released Painted Lady butterflies right outside our front door. My daughters turned their attention away from the butterflies that flew without hesitation to scoop up the two butterflies with broken wings with such compassion and gentleness that it made me want to cry while the others took to the wind without hesitation because it was what they were created to do. I remembered when I felt just like the butterflies with broken and tattered wings to wounded to know what freedom and soaring above it all felt like.

Imagine that wing, tattered and malformed, is a fist. The deeper it hurts the tighter you clench it, hold it up in the air and shake it. Inside your palm are fragments of the past that you can’t forgive. Things that seems worth holding onto, tiny enough to be unnoticeable. But it grows roots and claws that wrap around you, trapping you and choking out the life…the beauty…the fullness that God has in store.

Anger and the inability to forgive cripple a heart that longs to soar above it all. A crippled heart limps through life and even though you think no one else can see, God sees it and says, “Do you want to be made well?”

I don’t know who has wounded you crippling your heart so that a wall encases what God meant to showcase. But, when you let go, choose to forgive, the fist relaxes and the vines that entangled you are uprooted setting you free.

Healing comes when you admit that you are the walking wounded.

Healing comes when you learn to forgive yourself and others.

Healing comes when you release it, unclenched and unhindered. Then what once was tattered becomes stronger than ever, something useful as you soar on wings like eagles.

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” (Is40: 29-31 NIV)