Liverpool #4 - Beauty from Brokenness
Beauty from Brokenness
By Mark Mueller
Executive Director
I remember my brother tossing me a football in my early years in the living room of our Minnesota home. We broke a beautiful, blue vase my mother loved. It shattered as it hit the floor.
I’ve broken pencils, wine glasses and promises.
I’ve come from a broken home and have had a broken heart, but seldom have I seen brokenness on display as I have seen it in Liverpool among the Iranian refugees.
Every story is unique of how these men and women arrived here. Some left Iran because they feared for their life due to their belief in Jesus Christ. Others were disenfranchised by Islam. Still others found little prospect of any kind of life worth living in Iran. So, they left. Some found friends abroad. Some hopped from country to country eventually finding asylum in England. They have walked, driven, bused, boated their way here. I can’t even comprehend their struggle to get here.
Brokenness can easily become a vague word we like to slap onto messiness and imperfection to help us neatly tuck it away because brokenness can be strikingly harsh. It is brutal here.
Even though the Bible encourages us to have a kind of inward brokenness – a contrite spirit over our own sinfulness which leads to humility, surrender, and godly repentance, it’s painful to look into the faces of these refugees without a loud shout to God in anger, horror and disgust.
I understand at some surface level the world is broken. Life does break us. Yet to see it and to live in its midst, day after day, is quite something to navigate. What is God up to here?
For example, one of the leaders of our group is an Iranian refugee. His name is Shapoor. It is unsafe for me to show a picture of him. Shapoor fled from Iran. He came to England and sought asylum. He waited for 2 years for his case to be heard. He was provided a one-room apartment and 35 pounds ($45/month for all living expenses). He could not work during this time. He knew no one and had to wait for his case to be processed. At the end of the two years, his case was denied. When he told the case worker that this rejection meant being sent back to Iran to face imprisonment and possible death, the government didn’t really care much. Shapoor appealed his case and waited another two years. By the grace of God, his case was overturned. Shapoor is married now and serves as a phenomenal pastor to Iranian refugees. He speaks fluent English and Farsi. He has started a church that is growing rapidly. But still, I hear and feel his brokenness. He spent four years of a life in limbo not knowing the next step. I can’t imagine the psychological and emotional struggle. Yet, in his brokenness there is a profound beauty now.
I have found many cases of this apparent truth. Surprisingly, there is a beauty in these Iranian refugees. They are not bitter but joyful. Their great struggle has resulted in a great shaping of their lives. It has come not from their strengths or moments when they got ahead, but from their struggles. God is using these times in profound ways. Our God is so counterintuitive to the way we think. God takes our brokenness and bring new life and beauty from it.
In Liverpool, this hope makes the worst of life bearable as these refugees wait for their cases to be heard. They have hope. They are resilient. You can see it in their faces and hear it their testimonies. They cling to Jesus because, frankly, Jesus is all they have. They identify with the brokenness of Jesus Christ. The Bible is read deeply here, particularly the agony of Jesus in Gethsemane in Mark 14:32-42, or the despair of Jesus on the cross in Matthew 27:45-46. And beauty, as if a rose is opening, is on display for all to see, hear, feel, touch and smell.
The meaning of brokenness in the Bible is deep and rich. It reminds us that God is no stranger to our human experience. As we awake more and more to His presence and working in our lives, we too can find hope in knowing our brokenness isn’t pointless. On the contrary, it’s worth something of immeasurable value. It will drive us further into the heart of the One who makes us whole and gives us hope.
