I watched intently as my sweet pink princess of a daughter played. She was a busy five-year-old, spunky and imaginative and always on the move.

She plodded slowly towards me, doll hanging by her side. In her eyes I could see frustration and a touch of sad.

“My doll won’t stand up!”

I took up the porcelain doll and examined her carefully.

“I don’t want her anymore,” she said.

Beneath her doll’s purple satin and lace dress was a piece of metal where a leg used to be. Collateral damage from a little girl adventure, perhaps.

“I don’t want her because she’s broken.”

Aren’t we all broken? I heard a voice inside me say.

The curly blonde doll with the blushed pink cheeks and the blinking blue eyes –something was missing, but she was still beautiful. The doll and I, we hide the broken pretty well. For many years I hid the painful reality of childhood sexual abuse. It was crippling and I doubted my worth.

I explained to my young one that even though the doll could not be fixed it didn’t mean she had no value. The lesson seemed lost on her at the time, but not to me. I am as imperfect as the doll with the missing leg. I was hiding my imperfections fearing that if someone were to find out about them they might discard me.

I was tangled in chains, wishing I was whole. Deeply wanting restoration.

Despite my brokenness and my scars, I am beautiful because God tells me I am. Unlike the doll, I can be mended. I am not broken beyond repair. He makes all things new, even me.

Through Him, I have found the courage to stop hiding the parts of me I see as ugly. And share the real me, with a world that needs to know the One who finds value in the broken.

What brokenness are you hiding? What fears keep you from letting people see the real you?

By Christy, A Heartening Life

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