the new kind of beautiful

Last night, I came back to life.

I've been walking in the valley, I guess. Life isn't how I thought it would be. Love is harder than I expected. Faith is harder. Hope is harder; sometimes it feels thin and brittle, and maybe even broken already. I used to think I was strong, tough, a good example. But over the last eight months, Jesus has put a mirror in front of me and made me see who I really am, and I have been appalled and disgusted by my brokenness. And then I got so used to looking at my brokenness that I forgot to look back at His face.

Yesterday, in Sheridan, while they were replacing the tie rod ends and the left Pitman arm on my pickup, I picked up a book at the Christian bookstore. Kisses From Katie. It's about a woman who lives in Uganda, who has adopted thirteen little girls, who spends all her time cooking and digging jiggers out of ragged feet and hugging kids and changing diapers full of earthworm-sized worms. And she loves Jesus. Jesus has destroyed her life, and she loves Him as much as any person I've ever heard of. And she's only twenty-two. (For more information, see kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com.) 

And I woke up this morning, and I was different. I was excited; I couldn't figure out what I was excited about.

I came to school and talked to the boys about their football game. I listened to a country song with a lady I used to be afraid of who is now my friend. I took an application for the New Mexico trip from one of the girls, and it said she wants to go to chop wood and learn more about Jesus. How can I say no to that?

It's taken a lot of months, but I know who I am now. I know my own brokenness. I know I don't deserve Jesus' love; good grief, I really don't. When the kids mess up, I can look at their wounds and see myself. We are all so broken. 

And in that, there is beauty. Because Jesus loves using broken people.