brokenness and grace

"Brokenness is a gift." This is something I told a good friend awhile back as I shared with her that every time I have experienced genuine brokenness, I am humbled, I receive a fresh wave of God's grace in my life, and I can more freely be a person who then offers grace to others. In fact, I sometimes pray for God to break me when I recognize a hardened heart within me and am experiencing difficulty loving or being a person of grace.

You gotta love a good spiritual friend in your life. Last night, my friend said to me, "I'm so glad you consider brokenness as a gift because I think you're going to need to experience that gift (in a particular relationship)." She laid out what I've already known intellectually for a time but find so difficult to live. It's difficult to genuinely think grace and actively extend grace in a relationship where there's been hurt. It's so much easier to know it and talk about it, and much easier to "assume" grace in a somewhat removed relationship, and it's so much more difficult for grace to be a daily reality in those close-to-us relationships. In writing this, I feel exposed as a schmuck and feel that I might be alone as "the one who suffers a severe grace deficiency." I do know better, however, that I am not alone in this challenge of grace. I also know that the remedy is a breaking of my heart that allows me a real encounter with God's unconditional love and grace poured out for me in Christ which then allows me to offer His love and grace to others. I am so aware how this "saved by grace" through Christ is both a "one time experience" and a "constantly needed new experience" in my life.