{"id":9273,"date":"2024-03-22T08:23:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T15:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/shattered-and-beautiful\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T08:23:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T15:23:15","slug":"shattered-and-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/shattered-and-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"Shattered and Beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was thinking about times in my life when I\u2019ve felt so shattered and devastated by situations or circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m talking about the times when you feel so beaten down or broken that you don\u2019t even feel like you have it in you to worship or praise or rejoice your way out of the situation. What you want to do is fall on the ground in a heap and either have a tantrum; or sob until you can\u2019t breathe, or both. Or maybe you just want to curl up in the fetal position and hide\u2026\u2026have you been there or is it just me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I love how real David expressed himself in the Psalms. The Psalms are gritty and glorious and real; and filled with emotion and heartache and suffering and joy and praise and worship and even frustration and a desire for revenge. They\u2019ve got it all and when I have no words to speak what my heart is feeling; there\u2019s always something in the Psalms that resonates with me, no matter the situation or circumstance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Psalm 51:15-17, David is feeling all the feels and he cries out to God because He knows that praise will help him move beyond his immediate feelings. You\u2019ve got to know that he\u2019s not feeling like praising. He feels locked up, maybe shut down; but He knows what He needs to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He acknowledges that God isn\u2019t interested in the surface things like how good we present ourselves or what we offer or give up to make ourselves look or feel better about something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think verse 17 is one of my favourites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about the picture it presents. God\u2019s pleasure is released like a fountain bubbling up and overflowing when we scrape up the pieces of our heart and offer them to Him. When we come to Him with all our brokenness and wounding and shattered pieces and say, \u201cHere. I don\u2019t even know what to do anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever had someone despise you? It\u2019s an awful feeling. Especially if they are despising your weakness? It\u2019s like getting kicked when you\u2019re already down. But God won\u2019t despise you when you come to Him shattered. The opposite of despise is to cherish, adore, admire, love; that\u2019s how He will receive you when you bring your broken pieces to Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine. Imagine feeling like you\u2019ve been broken into a million pieces and you can\u2019t possibly see how you are worth anything to anyone in the shape you are in. You scrape together all the pieces and come before God with all the sadness and hurt and shattered-ness that you are feeling. And He looks at you with such love and compassion and holds all those pieces close to His heart until the warmth of His love softens them enough that He can mold and piece them back together into an even more beautiful masterpiece than what originally was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May we offer those shattered pieces of ourselves to the One who loves us most. Trusting that He will create beauty from brokenness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was thinking about times in my life when I\u2019ve felt so shattered and devastated by situations or circumstances. I\u2019m talking about the times when you feel so beaten down or broken that you don\u2019t even feel like you have it in you to worship or praise or rejoice your way out of the situation. … Continue reading “Shattered and Beautiful”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33,308,16,73],"tags":[200,356,360,267,313,357,355,359,358],"class_list":["post-9273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep-thoughts","category-god","category-me","category-writing","tag-beauty","tag-beauty-from-brokenness","tag-cherished","tag-encouragement","tag-gods-love","tag-psalm-5115-17","tag-shattered","tag-tender-hearts","tag-tenderness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xangelle.com\/dailygrind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}