"You never have to overcome your      brokenness to claim God's love.
  His love has already overcome your  brokenness and claimed you." 
  

My shoulders lower three inches upon reading these words penned by Ann Voskamp in "The Broken Way".
My jaw loosens and those eyes of mine shimmer with unreleased tears.

For I am broken.

"No one could tell me how to get the dark, the ache, the fear, the hell out of me. No one could tell me how to find the place where you always felt safe and secure and held."

It was like a thunderclap of my soul from the inside-out.
I am broken.
The pieces are scattered across the floor and I am bent over them, kneeling into the gritty shards of my sin and darkness. The busted up pieces of loss and shame and the gravelly crumbs of innocence lost that look impossible to gather up. Much less put back together.
I needed safe.
I wanted held.

"How can it be? When we're naked and ashamed and alone in our brokenness, Christ envelopes us with His intimate grace. When we're rejected and abandoned and feel beyond wanting, Jesus cups our face. 'Come close, my Beloved.' When we're dirty and tear-stained and despairing, Jesus Christ is attracted to us and proposes undying love. 'All that you're carrying I take....and all that I am is yours.'"

Hope rises.
Jesus is attracted by brokenness.
By my brokenness.
It's why He came.

"You're guilty, but not condemned.
You're busted up, but believed in.
You're broken, but beloved."

I can do this.
I can be broken and beloved in a single space in time.
The two can link arms and walk straight and strong.

"Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice." Psalms 51:17 The Message