Broken

I could not mistake the sound of her sobbing as she poured out her heart and pain to me. Heart wrenching. Not the kind of thing you forget easily. In fact, I awoke the next morning heavy laden with the painful story I heard running laps in my mind. I couldn't shake it. I fought back the tears. A pain so deep and real I could feel it physically. It hurt in my stomach.

Broken people are all around us. They are broken for various reasons. Some due to poor decisions they made and others broken due to poor decisions of others around them. Broken people are damaged. Damaged emotionally. Damaged psychologically. They are also fractured. Wounded.

I cannot get this off my mind and heart. I think of sons who grew up or are growing up with tyrannical fathers. Those fathers constantly criticize. They never encourage. No matter the performance the son can never match up to the high expectations of a demanding father. Those sons will grow up their whole lives, even into adulthood, striving to hear these words, "Son, I am proud of you and I love you." They will work to succeed but always feel like they could not measure up. They will feel like failures. Those broken sons in many cases grow up to have sons they do the same things to because they do not know how to do it differently.

Some daughters grow up broken because they were abandoned. Fathers just walked away. Walked out of their lives forever. Others were abused in horrific ways that fractured them and damaged in ways we can never fathom. They will always have trust issues. Their self esteem is destroyed and in worst cases they give themselves away to any man or woman who shows some interest. They play at sex searching in vain for love while sadly others play at love with them just to get sex.

Broken. Damaged. Fractured. We work around such people. They might be our neighbors. Our children might go to the same schools. We might even sit next to them in a house of worship.

Are we aware? Do we notice? Can we identify those who spent the night in silent sobbing? Can we see those who keep everyone at arm's length because they have trust issues. I am such a person. As a child I remember clearly a family member slapping me across the face in a fit of anger. I remember vividly a drunk uncle picking up a bull whip to whip me. He lashed me several times. I know he was angry. Did I deserve to be whipped with a bull whip? In hindsight I know now my uncle was physically abused by his alcoholic father. He just acted out the things that had been done to him as a younger man. My paternal grandfather sexually abused my aunts while my grandmother held them down. WHY? Sick, twisted, perverted, and broken.

Hurt people hurt other people. Broken people break other people. Damaged folks leave a wake of destruction in other people. My father's side of the family lived shamefully, hiding in the shadows, and embracing sins like alcoholism, molestation, incest, domestic violence, and adultery just to name a few. The cycle continued. Many years ago I talked to a female cousin who told me she had been sexually abused by an uncle. She told me every single female member of the extended family had been sexually abused. Hurt people hurting other people.

Even as a first grader some of those cousins, who were getting abused themselves, introduced me to sexual intercourse. I eye witnessed my cousins who were brothers and sisters having sexual intercourse. They even tried to get me to do it as a first grader! I have not thought of that in decades. Broken.

To even write about these things is shocking to me today. When I first started writing this I had no thought or intention of delving into my broken past. Over the years I have seldom talked about the sexual abuse of childhood. Ashamed. Embarrassed. A victim. To have males in my family try to sexually abuse me seems like a distant memory now. It doesn't even seem real but the memories are not made up. In my mind I travel back to hidden places in the woods near mossy oak trees, in bedrooms where all the cousins slept in the same bed irregardless of age, and in hidden isolated rooms where shameful things could be done secretly. I recall an incident in an outhouse.

I grew up broken. I did not understand my anger. Raging anger. I fought as a child and teenager a lot. Football was not just a game for me. It was my life. My identify. My way out. I had to succeed. I hurt many people along the way. Anyone who stood in the way of my dreams and goals. A hardened young man, rebellious, defiant, and not trusting. A victim.

Then one October night in 1983 I met Jesus. He touched me. He changed me. He transformed me. He healed me. He saved me. He delivered me. He loved me. He rescued me. He adopted me. I am no longer broken. No longer a victim. I am a victor in Jesus. I am overcoming. I am continually being made whole. I am constantly being renewed.

Even to this day I battle trust issues.  I am not broken and fractured like I used to be. I live to help other broken people find healing and wholeness in Jesus. He is the only One who can do that. I praise Him that what He did for me He is still doing for others to this day. It is my honor to serve Him by helping broken people.