Broken Things

We spent a weekend away.

It wasn't a bad weekend, but it was a hard weekend for me.  I had anxiety leading up to it, surrendering through it, and the return home was another reminder that reality is messy.

Reality is such a mess.
I am such a mess.

So many aspects of my life feel utterly broken right now, and it's like wading around in Step One at every turn.

My car is broken,
My rental...
My marriage, the kids!   

We seem to own nothing as a couple except ourselves and the children: we live in a rental that is constantly a mess and drive a very old broken car that isn't our own (here's lookin' at you, Arizona State Credit Union).
Every time I crawl through the passenger's side door (because the driver's side won't open, or -shall I say- shouldn't be opened) I remember

BROKEN.

Our money is being pouring into recovery and medical bills.
Because, of course, my body is broken as well.

This is the place were old people tell you things don't matter... where they pat you on the head for being patient enough not to buy a house but to SAVE while you rent.
Except they don't know that we're not saving.  At all.

My job is the place I go to remind myself of The Great Brokenness.
"I couldn't do it," friends say, "leave my kids, especially when they're little... it's just not worth it."
But it is the CHOICE I made because it is what keeps me safe.  When I have no safety, I have my job.  I have a little pocket of cash to freedom.  I have the means to care for my children should I need to, and I have to think about these things in the unconventional way, see, because of the addiction.
I have to leave my home and talk to people about their tires and the 3% charge we have to add with a credit card because behind that greasy shop counter is a woman with three children that she loves FIERCELY, with a fire that burns hotter than any coal addiction could spit out.
My friends say they couldn't do it, but they could.  They could if it came to it.
It's amazing what you can do when it comes to it.
When it comes to The Great Brokenness...


Broken is a scary place.  It's a very scary place.  Broken is why insurance salesmen make good livings.  But there's no insurance for porn addiction.
(Business idea, anyone?)

There's only absolute breaking of house, home, and heart.
And body, while we're at it.

Everyone has something to fix me with: everyone has a book to offer, a line of advice to give, a remedy for ails me.  But I don't want anyone at all to fix me.  I don't want to read another book that isn't in my Gospel Library.  I don't want a remedy unless it comes from The Great Physician.

I am fully in His care right now.
Broken.