By Dawn Onley

Never get comfortable being broke.

I’m not just talking about finances. I’m talking about broken relationships, broken health, broken life choices and broken spirits. Being financially broke may be just a natural end result of all of the other brokenness.

Most of us will eventually experience seasons of brokenness, when we are unemployed and can’t seem to find a job, recovering from the loss of a loved one, picking up the pieces from a divorce, losing a home through foreclosure or bankruptcy, trying to get through to a child who insists on learning the hard way, mending from an accident that left a part of us physically broken, knocked down by the betrayal of someone we at one time held close, unrealized dreams, etc.

But seasons of brokenness are just that – seasons. A temporary situation was never intended to become permanent. Seasons were never intended to become years and years were never intended to become decades. Some adults are still walking in their broken childhoods – never seeking to heal and to be made whole.

Even if the thought of the situation still makes us weep, and even if we can’t fix it alone, we owe it to ourselves to try. We owe it to ourselves to search for the light.

As tough as it may be, we need to work our way out of brokenness, to recognize the glimmers of hope and to embrace the love that never left. We need to do what Paul McCartney said and “take these broken wings and learn to fly.” We need to heal.

We were never intended to stay in a broken state. We were created to shine with our unique gifts and talents. We were not created to wallow in perpetual despair.

We can’t cling to brokenness and freedom with the same grip. We can’t be incomplete and whole at the same time. We need to free ourselves from the mental, physical and emotional bonds that are holding us captive and away from our best selves.

Life is about endurance and strength. It is not about how hard you fight or how fast. Only that you keep fighting.

In the end, you win. If you haven’t won yet, it is not the end.

Hang in there.