When We Share Our Broken

Be encouraged by these words from one of my fellow Our Daily Bread writers, Elisa Morgan, and her podcast co-host, Eryn Eddy. What I love most about their words here is how they looked past their “obvious” differences and shared their stories with candor to find common ground—something we all need to be doing more of today. And in the process they unearthed the profound treasure that God loves us in spite of our messy brokenness. Learn more about Elisa and Eryn and about the God Hears Her podcast at the foot of the article.

Guest post by Elisa Morgan and Eryn Eddy

Our first meeting was something like a friendship blind date. It happened on a summer day in Grand Rapids, Michigan—home to neither of us. We’d each been tapped by Our Daily Bread Ministries to pilot a podcast for women as co-hosts. After flying in late at night from our home states of Colorado and Georgia, we introduced ourselves early one morning over coffee at the hotel’s breakfast bar. 

From first sight, we knew we were different. One old, the other young. One blond the other one brunette turned gray. One artsy and tatted and cool, the other edgy but pretty status-quo.

Would this work? Could we become a team together—cracking open and connecting our hearts so that women listening—who we hadn’t met either—would receive what we all desperately long for? To be seen. To be heard. To be loved just as we are?

As we took seats across the table from each other and donned over-the-ear, preacher-type mics, we shared bits and pieces of our days and suddenly where difference had been, our sameness unfolded. Delayed flights to Grand Rapids. Starvation after not enough breakfast. Favorite shades of never-to-be-skipped lipstick. We both had some Southern roots after all—if you count Texan as Southern which I guess I do. And—tada!—our birthdays even matched—exactly! Who knew?

At some point the producer cued us to start and off we went, meandering through one’s divorce, the other’s mistakes, our woman wounds. We shared our stories of falling and getting up and discovering more of Jesus through both downs and ups and coming out “better” somehow.

Nearly a year later and the recording of two seasons later, we know two truths that hunt us down every day and catch us up in a hug. Like one of those monster embraces that simply won’t let go.

First: God loves the broken. He loves us exactly the way we are, mess and all. And he loves us too much to leave us that way and instead carefully reassembles our broken into his concept of beautiful. 

Second: God uses the broken. Sometimes even more powerfully than before we were shattered. We think that our broken disqualifies us from effective use in God’s world, in ministry, in life. Our divorce. That illness. The wayward teen we raised. The messed-up mothering we experienced. But the thing is, when we put our broken into the redemptive hands of Jesus, he can actually mold it to further qualify us for his purposes. By breaking, our hearts grow rooms where we can connect with the pain of others and offer them the comfort we have received from our Comforter and the hope we have gained from our Hope. 

So, wherever you are right now…tired…jaded…worn out…maybe you’ve made decisions that you thought would help remedy the pain but actually made things worse. Here’s good news for your spirit that’s about to toss in the towel: God does not toss us away. He leans in close to show us we don’t have to be perfect to make impact. He can use our broken circumstances to create a level of empathy in us that more people need to encounter. If we don’t see our broken circumstances as strength with God in it, the enemy will use them as a foothold to feed a bigger lie that will ultimately paralyze us from moving forward.

We get there one way and one way only. Not by force but by surrender. Pull out all the mess you tend to hide away, hold it in your arms and then hold out your arms and say… God, if you are who you say you are, that means you want all of this. ⠀

We’ve learned he does. He wants it all. It’s just that he’s a gentleman and desires the invitation to be brought into the mess. He will soften that heart of yours. He’s just that good. That creative. That loving.

We hope you’ll lean in to listen to more and more of how God views your broken. God Hears Her is a podcast for women like us. Because women are pulled in every direction, and we put pressure on ourselves to do all and be all. Because we feel overwhelmed, isolated and often wonder…is it just me? Because we need to be reminded that God sees us while we’re frantically responding to emails in the early morning and doing dishes after dinner. That he hears us when our hearts cry out for more. 

God Hears Her is a podcast for women who are in the trenches of the beautiful and messy moments of relationships, work, ministry and more where we explore the stunning truth that God notices you. God sees you, he hears you, he loves you because you are his. 

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