Tripping and Stumbling

I tend to break things. Glasses, dishes, cell phones, myself. I'm just not always the most coordinated person in the world. Okay, I'm hardly ever coordinated or graceful. I've dropped spaghetti on my mom's new white carpet. I've broken 3 different cell phones in less than a year. In fact, while in college I managed to fall down four separate flights of stairs at one point or another. That doesn't even count all the times I fell up the stairs.

I don't always feel so coordinated when it comes to my spiritual life, either. I stumble. A lot (both literally and figuratively). It's easy to feel useless, unnoticed, and unloved. I find myself questioning how God could possibly want me when I mess up so often. And yet, I believe in a God who loves me and chooses to use me even in all of that brokenness.

Isn't the Bible full of such examples of broken people used to glorify God? Moses was a terrible public speaker, and yet God used him to deliver His people. King David made some awful decisions, and yet he was a man after God's heart. Peter went so far as to deny Jesus three times, and yet Jesus called him the rock on which he would build the church. I don't know about you, but it makes me feel better to know that those Biblical giants messed up big time, too.

It's been a long time since my last post because I've been out of town for two weddings (more posts to come on all of that), and then, this week, my papaw passed away. So, today I find myself back in Oklahoma for his memorial service. You might be asking, "How does this tie into brokenness?" Well, my papaw lived the last few years of his life with Alzheimer's. His mind steadily became more and more broken as the disease robbed him of his memory. When my family would discuss his illness, we would question why God would allow him to remain alive as his mind declined. He was not the same vivacious man that we had always known.

Then, my parents and sisters sat by my papaw during his last hours. They saw workers from the nursing home pouring in to say goodbye to a man who had never been harsh to them; who was always eager to read the Bible out loud or sing a hymn. He called everyone "Darlin" and always said, "Thank you." As my sister pointed out to all of us, Alzheimer's could not take away my papaw's love of Christ. Even though his mind was broken and he wasn't the wisecracking grandpa we knew anymore, he still radiated the Holy Spirit. He still brought glory to God even as his mind and body were failing him.

Today, we remember my papaw's life and what he brought to us while he was here on earth. But, I know that along with the jokes and sayings that my papaw left me with, he also passed on a legacy of faith that proved that even when all hope is gone--when we are at our most broken--God still uses us.

Thanks, Papaw, for that lesson.