beauty in brokenness

for so long somethig inside of me wanted to use my voice to impact others. i have had a passion to help people since i was a child. in the midst of when my OCD struggle began i felt completely lost and dark and hopeless. i remember my mom was trying to comfort me and even said that someday God was going to use this, use my story and maybe i would even speak on stage and help others who are going through the same thing.

i didn’t believe one word of that at the time. as i walked through my teenage years i continued to want to help others, but knew i had to help myself first. i would go to Bible camp and have a flame to share the gospel, but i didn’t truly believe it myself so it usually fizzeled out.

it is by God’s grace and power that He still used me during my worst days. in my junior year of college i was a prayer leader to some girls on my floor. this was during the hight of my mental struggles and self-harm. i felt fake. an imposter. i was truly a shell of a person. yet, i would sit there (with nothing prepared) and pray “Lord, i’m completely broken. if these girls are going to get something, it is definitly not from me. please speek through me in spite of everything.” i felt like i was making no impact and everyone didn’t seem too affected by what i would say. this was just another area i was failing at.

what does this have to do with waves? i’m getting to that, be patient 😉

fast foward a year, i reached out to one of the girls and was able to pour into her when she got back to school and share a lot of the healing i had experienced. she told me how God really used me the year prior and how impactful being in my group was. i was completely stunned. when i was at my complete worst, consumed with cutting, depression, anxiety, and controled by OCD; even then, God used me. He used me. none of it was me, it couldn’t be. i was so broken that i could not fake it, i was truly an empty vessel.

as i began truly healing for the first time, God spoke to me, “now imagine what I can do through you.” i was reminded of the time my mom told me God could use this. i believe God gave her this prophesy of me using what God had done in my life to encourage me that HE COULD DO IT.

He could heal me. He could bring me out of darkness and to the other side…and HE DID. now i don’t speak God’s truth because of some spark in my covered by doubt, but i speak His truth because I HAVE EXPERIENCED IT. and i long for others to experience it too.

so much of my life was characterized by brokenness. i felt like a child constantly crying out for help. when i got my tattoo a few years ago (another blog for another time lol), i was not in the best place, but felt ready to get one. i decided on a wave, not just because i love florida and th ocean, but because what the wave represents. God gave me the phrase “beauty in brokenness” which i almost got written under the wave.

He gave me the revelation of what a wave is. it is something that on the outside that we see as beautiful, but is actually the stress of the water that has been broken and shaken around by the forcess around it. waves are part of storms that have taken down ships and claimed lives. yet, we see them as beautiful? something that is disastrous is redeemed into an image of power and grace. this is my story, God as taken the brokenness of everything in my life and has made it beautiful. my hurt is not perminent and is not purposeless, and neither is yours.

He truly makes beauty from ashes, graves into gardens, and beauty in waves 🌊

“mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!” – ps. 93:4

love, sara 🤍