Broken: Five Minute Friday

I knew many would use today’s prompt as a beautiful expression of the raw broken-ness we see in Christ crucified.  I, too, shudder when I ponder the depth and magnitude of that moment that broke the cycle of sin and condemnation.

But this word…when I saw it, I thought immediately of a post I wrote a few weeks ago.  A moment about how motherhood can make me feel broken.  Because lately, that’s what I’ve been thinking about a lot.  How mothering breaks us in so many ways.

It’s broken my confidence.  It’s broken my plans.  It’s broken my solitude.  It’s broken my heart.

Motherhood is tough, unyielding, hardcore, breath-gasping broken-ness. And last night when I lay awake after settling the preschooler back at 3 a.m., I thought about that cross, that pain, that humiliation that broke the body of my Savior, and I thought how I could never do that, could never endure the pain meant for someone else….

unless that someone was my child.

Yes, motherhood breaks us.  It breaks us of our selfishness so that we can identify with Christ for just a nanosecond of that moment and understand why He would allow himself to be broken….

for His children.