We Are All Broken In Different Ways
Faith Bosland
Nathan McDine | Unsplash
The first time I met my friend “Jimmy,” he was wearing a t-shirt with a big hole in it while eating a powdered donut, and as he greeted me enthusiastically the crumbs sprayed everywhere. That was my first impression, and what you see is what you get with Jimmy.
Jimmy is like the signature member of our little “ragtag” church that meets in a house on Sunday afternoons. Jimmy has a cognitive disability, the result of a head injury when he was a teenager. He walks with a shuffle and his speech is hard to understand. Jimmy gets a haircut about once a year, and everyone celebrates like he just got a makeover.
As soon as Jimmy meets you he will tease you, and he loves to be teased back. I believe he is part of our church because he knows he is loved, and he loves everyone there. He tells us so every week. Jimmy has a lot of reasons he could hate people who have wronged and exploited him throughout his life, but God has changed his heart. He prays for all of us out loud every week, even though he can only remember a few names. Jimmy is unashamed to be who he is, flaws and all, and unashamed to love and be loved.
Jimmy is a beloved soul inside of a mess.
There’s more. Jimmy is also a registered sex offender. He committed a crime decades ago and now publicly carries a label with him for the rest of his life - regardless of how he’s changed or grown.
When we first joined this church, I think I believed I was there to help people like Jimmy.
But one week while crowded together with our ragtag group, something hit me: I’m Jimmy.
I just have more pretenses, more ways to hide my brokenness. See, my sins -- like pride, greed, envy, the desire to control my world, the desire to stay safe and comfortable, the tendency to look down on those whose sins are worse -- they are more socially acceptable. But what would it look like to live like Jimmy -- freely love others, live uninhibited by my imperfections? To recognize that God’s love and grace are all I have, and they’re not meant to be hoarded?
I am a beloved soul inside of a mess.
We are all a beloved soul inside of a mess -- the ones with donut on our faces, the felons, the prideful ones who have it all together, the anxious ones, the comfortable ones. All of us.
I thought I was going to help Jimmy, but Jimmy has helped me. The gift he has given me is the gift of fully, deep down recognizing that we are all broken in different ways. Some of our sins just might be more socially acceptable.
As we come alongside families in poverty, families whose sins may be visibly on display for others to see, families who have borne tremendous pain -- may we walk in the humility, the belief and understanding that we are just as broken -- in fact we may be even more broken if we don’t recognize our brokenness. And we may desperately need these kinds of relationships to see God at His fullest.
Reflection Questions:
Have you ever met someone like Jimmy (or otherwise) who helped you see God more fully?
What kind of sins do you think are easiest for us to hide as socially acceptable?
How do you think it changes our approach to families and communities experiencing poverty when we recognize our own brokenness?
