B is for Broken

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Mark 12:29-31    

²⁹ “The most important one,” answered Jesus,  

“is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: 

The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 

³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart 

and with all your soul and with all your mind 

and with all your strength.’ ³¹ 

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 

There is no commandment greater than these.”

There are a number of "B" words that I could write about today. Believe, Beloved, Baptism, Balam, Beauty, Blood, Blindness...


Today in my post "B" is for broken.
My pastor shared a sermon today that hit a lot of controversial social hot buttons. I will include the link should you desire to give it a listen. http://www.fccspokane.org/2012/04/sunday-04-01-2012/
He talked about pressing social issues at various times in history.  In the past the issues have been slavery, or race relations, women's rights, divorce, abortion, sexuality....

We have been looking at what it means to love the Lord with our heart, soul, mind and strength. As taken from Mark 12. This week we were looking at "mind" and asking the question of how do we love God with our mind or our intellect.  While the sermon touched on a lot of hot issues, what touched me most was the idea that we are all broken in one way or another and rather than throwing stones at each other we could choose to walk together in love.  He presented the case that we could come together from our starting places of brokenness and walk together towards understanding Gods design and plan.  

Can I take the log out of my own eye before I try to take the splinter out of yours? 

 If I want God to extend mercy, grace and forgiveness to me,

I must be willing to extend those things to others.

Working on The Beloved Project

If you have been following my posts for very long you already know I am a mosaic artist. In a very broken point in my life I discovered mosaics. Working with the bits of broken glass and making something new and beautiful out of the shattered remains gave me a kind of hope that sustained me through that difficult season.  Isaiah 61 talks about how we are given beauty for ashes. To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”  I would say that God gives us beauty out of brokenness. 

I have often wondered why God does not just protect us from the things that break and damage us in the frist place. I suppose he could. More often it is when we get to the end of ourselves and realize we need his help that then He is able to come to our aid. He waits for us to realize our need for Him. It is then that he steps in. It is then that he begins to help us pick up the shattered remains from our attempts to live life on our own terms.  He does not ask us to come to him all cleaned up and put together. He accepts just as we are, another prodigal come home from life in the pig pens of life.  

Our church slogan is "People accepted... lives changed." On any given Sunday our seats are filled with homeless,  inner city poor, people struggling with addictions, some with mental illness, sometimes we have sex offenders. Some old, some young, some have navigated life better than others but the fact remains if we are honest that we are all broken.  Can we love others like Jesus loves us?


I am thankful that Jesus forgives me and extends to me his mercy. That he sees the good in me and gives me the courage and faith to believe and to overcome step by step day by day. I would tell you that while it does no good to water down the word of God to accomodate our moral failures. It is possible to admit that we all struggle with various things and rather than spending our time pointing fingers at each other we could start learning to love like Jesus.

Prayer. 
Dear Lord,
Thank you for loving us before we loved you. For taking us just as we are in all our brokenness. Thank you for loving us where we are today and helping us to overcome one step at a time. Thank you that when we do slip and fall back in the old muck that you come and reach out with arms of love setting us back on our feet. Once again forgiving, healing and setting us free from the chains that kept us bound. Help us to love each other the way you love each of us.