When my neighbor came over to sit for a bit in my front yard, I was finishing a phone conversation with someone I had never met face-to-face. We had spoken several times that week while I served the church as “Pastor on Call,” and this new phone friend called to let me know how our prayers had been answered. My neighbor sat down, politely waiting for me, and she even closed her eyes and bowed her head as I ended the phone call with a prayer for continued peace and strength for the woman on the line. What I considered ministry to a person who called the church ended up being an opportunity to talk about brokenness and restoration with someone else. I am not a pastor, I often explain to people who ask me about my work, but I am a minister, and I get to witness beauty from brokenness regularly.

There is beauty in the brokenness of a woman who shares with me her heartache about breaking up with a boyfriend she met on-line, which leads to her getting connected into a Life Group at Orchard Hill Church. Brokenness becomes beautiful when a friend’s mother passes away peacefully after months of struggling for her life in the hospital. Sitting with a woman who cannot even form the words about why she is feeling so sad gives me an opportunity to pray for her as her tears fall and peace returns to her countenance.

Sometimes stories of brokenness are so ridiculous that in the sharing of them, we discover laughter together, which helps to mend our fractured souls.

Brokenness has been on my mind a lot lately, partly because of the work I get to do each day, but also because I have come to better understand that being broken is exactly the condition of all humans. Consider the “Three Circles in Three Minutes” model of sharing the Gospel of Jesus. It begins with drawing a circle with a squiggly line in the center. This circle represents a broken world, a space where boyfriends betray, mothers die young, depression overwhelms, and life is hard.

The second circle holds a heart and represents God’s perfect design, a world in which there are no break-ups, death, sadness, or sin. Sin is the very thing that separates humanity from God because He is perfect, and we are not. Often people try to get out of the broken circle by seeking relationships, pursuing health and wealth, finding identity in family or career, but those efforts often bungee bounce us right back into the circle of brokenness.

The third circle shows God’s plan to bring beauty out of our brokenness. A cross drawn in this circle tells about God’s perfect Son, Jesus, who died on the cross and came back to life so that the sin of mankind could be absolved. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” And 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The rightness of God is the beauty from brokenness, and it is possible because of the gift of salvation from Jesus Christ, who came to earth to mend all that was broken.

In three minutes, by looking at three illustrated circles, a person considers which of these circles describes their life currently. Which of these circles portrays a place where they would rather be? Brokenness is a condition all humans share. All we need to do is spend some time watching the news or scrolling through our social media feeds to know that to be true. A desire to be restored to God’s perfect plan is also a part of the shared human experience, and this beauty from brokenness is a gift that comes from acceptance of the Gospel of Christ.

So, reader, which circle are you in?

Do you find yourself trying to jump out of brokenness to be rebounded back into that circle again and again? Would you like to experience God’s perfect design for your life? Any pastor or ministry director at Orchard Hill Church would love to have a conversation about the process of becoming right with God and getting connected into Christian community for growth in a new and beautiful way of living.