A few months ago my little guy Gabe came to me with a broken toy. He is non-verbal Autistic so communication can be a real challenge for him. He set the toy in my lap and pressed the button that should've activated the toy to demonstrate it wasn't working. Reassuring him with a, "Mommy will fix it," I sat down with a screw driver and some new batteries. However, as I began to unscrew the back of the toy ... removing screws, taking the back panel off, pulling out dead batteries ... Gabe began to completely flip! He fell to the floor screaming and crying. He then attempted to take the toy back. Finally in a last ditch panic effort to communicate he flipped the toy back over, pressing the "go" button again as if to say, "What are you doing! Just fix this! This is all that's broken!" I continued to reassure him saying "It's okay. I'm fixing it." Although from his perspective I could clearly see how he thought I was making things worse, not better. After all the toy not only still didn't work ... it was now in pieces!
That was when I heard a still small voice say "This is exactly what my people do. They come to me with what's broken and don't trust that I know how to fix it." Tears welled up in my eyes as through my child I saw myself. I saw a young woman who took her broken dreams for herself, her daughter, and her family to the Lord to fix. I saw my anger and frustration with God when He didn't do things in the way and timing I thought He should. I saw myself take the situation back into my own hands as I walked away from God. I saw a battered and beaten woman return to God, broken item still in tow. I saw a God that brought yet another disabled child into our lives. I saw a God that began by dismantling me. I saw a God that dared to challenge my perspective, thoughts, and attitudes. A God that began to take me back through His Word to reveal deeper truths. A God that began to challenge other areas of my life as well ... finances, marriage, etc.
These things all flashed before my eyes as the words of Isaiah 55:8 came to mind "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways." You know why God allows broken things? Because He knows that is what will bring us to Him. He knows we will come to seek His hand and that from there He can show us His face. And although He cares about that broken thing that we care about, He also knows that the thing that needs fixing most is us. As I look back at nearly 13 years of my "mom of special needs children" walk I can see the changes He's made in me, my husband, and our family. Not to say there aren't things that I see that still need to change. But in spite of the pain and the brokenness, I am grateful.
Truthfully I've come to realize that because God is an "above and beyond" kind of God He is ALWAYS after the greatest good for us and the most glory for Him (Eph 3:20). When we bring that one broken thing to God, we are inviting Him in to invade every area of our lives. God gradually begins to pull things apart so that He can fix, heal, and deliver us from things we in our humanness don't even realize we need fixed, healed, and delivered from. And because of this, we always end up far better off than the way we started. Which brings me back to Gabe ...
As I finished fixing his toy I noticed a separate battery compartment. I quickly changed out the batteries in it too. When I handed the toy back to Gabe and watched him hit the "go" button, to both our surprise it not only lit up and made sounds as it always had before. It also began to rumble, vibrate, and shake! I watched as he happily walked away to play with his "once broken but now fixed above and beyond his wildest imagination" toy. If I can do that for my child, how much more does God want to do that for me? (Matt. 7:11)
Don't lose heart, friend. Our "above and beyond" God is forever on the throne, and "eye has not seen and ear has not heard all that God has prepared for those who love Him." (1 Cor. 2:9)
