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Recently I put text on our Daily Devotions that prompted many to write and/or telephone me. The devotion so touched my heart as I typed it and it also touched the hearts of many of our readers. I had many people ask me to write an article on brokenness….what it is and what it is not. I considered the requests for several days while always going to back to the book where I got the material for that devotion.

After church one Wednesday night I asked the author of that book, my pastor, if he would give me his permission to take, verbatim, that chapter from his book and put it on the web site. He graciously and humbly told me that I could do so and use the text in any format that I wanted to ….even deleting some of it. I assured him that I wanted it just the way that he wrote it.

When I was a very young in the Lord I had a pastor's wife that I just could not understand. She seemed strange and she talked weird. As I got to know her I had many thoughts of never wanting to be like her. I just could not like her…so I started praying for her…pour soul!!

As the weeks passed I found myself wanting to be around her more and more. The more that I prayed the more that I…loved her. And the more that I loved her the more that I found myself wanting to be around her. She, Mrs. Lu Claycomb, talked about dying to self, surrender to God's will, brokenness, a contrite heart-all of the time. And as I sat in her Sunday School class God began to deal with my heart….one neither surrendered nor broken. Thirteen years later, she was able to see the multiplied hours of prayer for me answered when God lovingly, mercifully, and graciously broke my heart to full surrender to His will….when He brought me to brokenness.

Mrs. Claycomb has been my "mom", mentor, friend, counselor, and prayer warrior for thirty years. Her poetry, which I use on this site, I understand now…where once her words seemed strange. Her love for her God I understand now…where once I thought it was weird. Her devotion to others and her love of teaching the Word of God I understand now…for I have experienced the wonder and blessing of both.

Denise reminded me this morning of something both of our dads used to say so often, "If it ain't broke don't fix it! "However, concerning a Christian God tells us we need to change that phrase, to , "If it ain't broke---ask God to fix it!" If you have read much of this web site you have read about brokenness in many "sizes and shapes" so to speak. If you have read my testimony or my book you have read how God took fourteen years and a lot of tough love to bring me to brokenness. The idea of brokenness is an enigma to far too many Christians…an almost 'forgotten' old fashioned way of God's dealing with the lives of His children. I hope and pray that this article…this chapter from The Fingerprints of Providence will define forever what God's Word teaches about the broken and contrite heart
~~Sharon Merhalski

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