Broken Praise

Driving home from an appointment I heard a song on the radio that brought tears to my eyes–because I could have written it.

The song recalled to my memory my inner feelings after my right femur snapped, casting me to the ground where I waited for at least a half hour in the snow before Randy discovered me.  Emergency surgery followed to place a rod into my bone. The next April I had the same procedure done to my left femur, before it too broke and threw me to the ground to wait for someone to rescue me.

Though I had struggled with physical weakness from MG all my life; knew the pain of surgeries; and had gone through breast cancer treatments of surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation; when I was recovering from broken bones, for the first time in my life I truly felt “broken.”

My body was broken.

I felt more helpless and vulnerable, crumpled, than ever before in my life. It almost felt like the final straw.

The only thing I knew for certain was that God was with me. In my brokenness. In the pain. In the inability to do for myself. In the wheelchair. In the physical therapy.

I did a lot of crying to God. In the midst of my physical, emotional and spiritual agony, he was the One I reached out to … and sang my broken hallelujahs to.

(Click to read and hear the song “Broken Hallelujah” on You Tube at this link. Or read the words at the end of the blog post.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFDAyyFn3WY

 

In my soon to be published book, Brokenness to Beauty, I talk about my life with MG (the disease that causes my weakness) and about my fight with cancer but I don’t mention my broken bones. The way through that struggle was the same as for the other struggles in my life.

And in yours. That’s what I share with you in Brokenness to Beauty: Transforming Your Brokenness into a Beautiful Life: How you can get through those dark, broken times in your life and be able to say “life is beautiful” and show it by your own beautiful life.

What are you struggling with today? Are you singing your broken hallelujahs to our God? Try it. He hears. He is with you. He will take your empty hands and lift you up. And make beauty out of your brokenness.

“Follow” this blog, leave a comment and send me your email to stay in touch to be among the first to get a copy of Brokenness to Beauty when it comes out, to encourage yourself and others.

Words to the song–

Broken Hallelujah

 

I can barely stand right now

Everything is crashing down

And I wonder where You are

 

I try to find the words to pray

I don’t always know what to say

But You’re the one who can hear my heart

 

Even though I don’t know what Your plan is

I know You make beauty from these ashes

 

I’ve seen joy and I’ve seen pain

And on my knees I call Your name

Here’s my broken Hallelujah

With nothing left to hold onto

I raise these empty hands to You

Here’s my broken

Here’s my broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

 

You know the things that have brought me here

You know the story of every tear

‘Cause You’ve been here from the very start

 

Even though I don’t know what Your plan is

I know You make beauty from these ashes

 

I’ve seen joy and I’ve seen pain

And on my knees I call Your name

Here’s my broken Hallelujah

With nothing left to hold onto

I raise these empty hands to You

Here’s my broken

Here’s my broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

 

When all is taken away, don’t let my heart be changed

Let me always sing Hallelujah

When I feel afraid, don’t let my hope be erased

Let me always sing Hallelujah

 

Hallelujah (repeat)

 

(From the new album “Life is Beautiful” by the Afters.)