Broken: Our new Life group met for the second time last night. I thought it would take a little while for conversation to really flow freely, and longer to get to the point where we were actually sharing deep things about ourselves. I knew going into this that I wanted to be very real and honest, and share those tough things, to kind of model that in a way. It may have been just a bit of a fluke (we had a smaller than normal group), but I was nearly blown away at some of the things that were shared.

At one point, I looked around and was just overwhelmed at these things that are a part of the lives of my friends, and how they are dealing with or have dealt with these just incredibly hard things. Part of me was thinking how easy my life has been in comparison, and wondering if I'm just incredibly blessed or if there are hard things to come in the future (this is my brain trying to create balance where it doesn't exist). But the larger part of me was just brokenhearted for all of the ugly things of this world. And grateful for the chance to walk with each of them through these things.

The whole thing reminds me of this quote that I love from Brennan Manning:

The Christian life does not deny brokenness; it denies that brokenness has the last word.