A New Years Resolution To Break

I am driving along a beautiful red rock path that reminds me of the Cars ride at Disneyland. That line you have to stand in and wait for two hours or more for the five minute thrill of the ride. As I am braking, I look down at the pedal realizing that I am driving the same car Marshall chose as his dream purchase the last Christmas he was alive.

I am not just braking inside my car, I am breaking inside myself.

I stop completely, and I am completely broken.

A broken heart is beating inside my healthy, whole chest.

I flip around. My son loves to do actual flips and last week he rotated too quickly when landing a back flip. He landed the flip perfectly and yet his head flung forward hitting his eye against a hard, leather ottoman. His eye looks black, blue, bruised, cut, and broken. Yet, he landed the flip with perfection.

You may have come to this blog thinking I’d list some new year’s resolutions to break as some of us do every year. No, my new year’s resolution is to be broken, to break; to hit the brakes, braking against the way I am driving to redirect my path. My goal is to cast away the road I planned on traveling, the life I planned on living, and breaking the routine I have lived over and over every day.

My goals this year are:

1. To break my image.

My aim is to put less emphasis on how others see me and more on how God sees me. I welcome a broken image. I embrace breaking the images so many portray online and be a real person again in real life to those I really come in contact with throughout my days this year. I want to surround myself with those who will be real with me and allow me to be real with them. Let’s be real people this year and break the foundations that brought us to staring at screens of fake images. I resolve to break the fake images.

2. To break my foundations.

This year I plan on giving a hard look to the structures within myself that are falling because the foundation is bad. The structures are falling because the foundations aren’t built the best they could be. People are divided and falling and aren’t standing for what is good. I plan to stand and build on timeless goodness.

3. To embrace my broken heart.

If anyone was a reader before Wildly Healthy was born, you are more than aware that the love of my life died six years ago. Some days I feel that is all I am. One big, messy broken heart. Someone else’s worse nightmare. But this year, I will love on my broken heart. It is the soil for a strong soul and this year I am sacrificing my broken spirits for an even stronger soul.

My potter may have decided to break the vessel I am in, but my maker’s creation is still ME. Rest assured, He will glue my broken pieces back together with golden lacquer for he loves broken things most of all. He placed me into the fiery kiln and I willingly allowed him to burn my vessel. This year, I am allowing Him to take me and do what He will with my broken pieces. I’m allowing my Maker to mold me into whatever creation will be useful and valuable to others.

The heart within me is complete even when it is completely in pieces.

You want a piece of me? Take it. The pieces are so fully shattered they will never go back how they were. I spent years building and it broke with one full blow. Here, have the pieces of the life I built. I will share them one by one in hopes that my broken parts serve better in pieces than when they were whole, perfect-looking, and complete. I would rather they serve others than sit there and look good, untouched and unbroken.

I break off this piece of bread and I feed you. I brake on this car and turn around on my journey of thinking wholeness completes me and provides joy. My new journey is realizing that it’s brokenness and sharing the pieces that provides real joy. It is not a fake, pristine image that provide this joy- it’s messy and protruding and sharing that is real joy. This year my goal is to unearth- to break up the very earth beneath me. I am breaking off into singing more- not caring who hears me. I am breaking the bands of grief that have held me down for years. I am breaking my voice on this blog and keeping my brokenness, my broken body and broken heart. After re-starting my car, I tap on the brakes and realize that broken is where I want to be. Where we are broken is where the light shines through giving us life and love. May God bless the broken road I am turning around on and continue to lead me to beauty, more turn-arounds, and more brokenness.