Broken

Who hasn’t been broken by this life? Whether it is family, career, society, health struggles, loss. So much loss. Loss of dreams, loss of love, loss of life.

Sometimes life feels like a blender that chops you up and spits you out.

My health has been something I have struggled with since I was a kid. I was always sick. It’s where the enemy knows to hit me and hit me hard. Maybe for you it is mental health or the state our world is in or a family member you pray for daily or financial or relationship struggles. Whatever it is, it breaks you open completely raw.

Okay, so we are broken, now what?

Do you sit in it? I DO. Do you feel sorry for yourself? YEP, ME TOO. Do you stay there? That’s where my answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT. I will never give up and I will never give in. Being a victim isn’t cute or healthy. It not only continually tears you and keeps you broken, but it takes others down with you.

I was sick with covid for 18 days. Like 2 trips to the hospital, super sick for 18 days. During that time, the virus tricked my mind. The virus told me to stay down and that I was alone. The virus told me I was going to have long haul symptoms. The virus told me I was never going to get better. The virus instilled fear and anger in me. I couldn’t go to church, couldn’t see my spiritual children at Youth. Sounds like the liar, the enemy Satan infiltrated my camp.

It was hard to pray, hard to really hear worship music, hard to read my Bible. I have never experienced such an intense spiritual attack for that length of time.

Of course the dummy didn’t win because HELLO I belong to Jesus and my victory is in HIM.

My oxygen stayed in the high 90’s. I have never been more thankful that I love to run and bike. It saved my heart from the chemo treatments, and this time kept me off of a ventilator or oxygen. We must take care of our bodies when we are well so we can fight when we are not well.

So, having recently come from a broken place, let me tell you how I am putting myself back together.

Surprise! I’m not. Jesus is. I can not do it without Him.

God gave me a picture of body cells with dark slashes through them. It stayed like that for a while. Then His healing light started lighting up the slashes. It’s a progressive picture. I know it is His promise to restore my health. It is going to be even better than before because that is the kind of God we serve.

Pressing in and dying to myself and what my human flesh wants and emptying myself of me and begging for more of Jesus is what gets me through this life. It makes each moment more peaceful and more beautiful than I could have possibly imagined.

Because of the health struggles I have encountered, I can compassionately pray for healing for others inflicted with sickness. My soul cries out for them, for you. God uses my struggle. He will never waste a hurt. I now know how it feels to not be able to breathe. I have so much more of an understanding of those who suffer with asthma.

Friends, be broken. But don’t forget you can be put back together. A little cracked, a little scarred. But those cracks and scars are what make us beautifully human.

Another In The Fire by Hillsong UNITED

There’s a grace when the heart is under fire
Another way when the walls are closing in
And when I look at the space between
Where I used to be and this reckoning
I know I will never be alone

There was another in the fire
Standing next to me
There was another in the waters
Holding back the seas
And should I ever need reminding
Of how I’ve been set free
There is a cross that bears the burden
Where another died for me
There is another in the fire

All my debt left for dead beneath the waters
I’m no longer a slave to my sin anymore
And should I fall in the space between
What remains of me and this reckoning
Either way I won’t bow
To the things of this world
And I know I will never be alone

There is another in the fire
Standing next to me

Love,

Tahnee XOXO