broken

This is my toe.




Pleas excuse the morbid close-up. I took this with my camera phone, while balancing on one foot. Trying desperately, I might add, to not fall and hit my broken toe.

This week at school, the broken toe has been a huge asset. I usually am standing all day, or singing with my kids while dancing around, but never resting. But, enter the toe.
Because on Monday it was hugely swollen and totally black and blue, our school nurse made me sit and put ice on aforementioned toe. This has been great because I've spent most of the week sitting in front of my class, with my foot elevated on a bar stool.

Besides, my kids think it's cool. They ask every day if it's still purple, and if it still hurts me.

Still a little purple, but doesn't hurt unless I bump it.

...

Really, the broken toe got me thinking yesterday. I am a klutz, and have had several broken bones in my life. Several casts, splints, braces, and taped up toes. My friend Cathy said last weekend that she has never had a broken bone. I really was stunned at that, just because I have had so many.

But the main gist of my recent thinking is that we are all broken. Eventually my toe will heal, and I won't even feel it anymore. One of my students is in a boot; she will heal up, be out of the boot, and be all fine at some point. But regardless of your broken-bone history, everybody is broken. We all have baggage. We all have hurts in our lives that affect us every day.
Even Cathy of the "never-broken-a-bone" fame.

Our brokenness affects everyday life, jobs, relationships, the way you treat the person ringing up your groceries.

Even though we are all made up of basically the same stuff, our baggage and our brokenness has a great deal to do with how we live our lives.

I am SO grateful that Jesus was broken so I have a way out of brokenness.

I am SO grateful that because He loves me, I can be whole. Regardless of the toe.

K