If you know me, you know that I am nothing if not vulnerable, transparent, and honest about what God has done and is doing in my life. I know my style is not for everyone, but when God starts working in my heart, I know that it’s not just for me. I’m not the only one who experiences temptation and pain. I’m not the only one who’s made mistakes or struggled through trauma. 1 Peter 5:9 tells us that believers all over the world are suffering as we are, and if we look at the world today, it’s obvious that some people are suffering in MUCH worse ways. For those reasons, I can’t keep my mouth shut when He’s working stuff out in me. When I share about a particular struggle, if you pay attention, I hope you notice that it’s never about glorifying the struggle, but it’s always from a place of, or in the process of the healing that God is doing in me. This is how we move from a victim mentality to an overcomer mentality. It’s not about the trauma, it’s about the healing. Every single one of us, at one time or another, has been a victim of something and it is a process to move out of that space and move into healing and victory, but it’s a beautiful, precious transformation that only God can receive the glory from.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while, and this morning the Lord highlighted it again for me and spoke to me through the old nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty. Yep. You read that right.  You know it don’t you? Just in case:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

This morning the worship pastor from my church, Jasmine Tate, released a song on YouTube (shared below) with Angela Kane, then did a live video on Instagram unpacking it and I resonated so deeply with what she shared. I strongly urge you to check out both. I promise they’re worth your time.

The song is called . . . you guessed it . . . Humpty Dumpty.

Jasmine talked about times in her life when she needed to be put back together and that the ways she tried to accomplish that always failed. She reached out for the things of this world to fill a void, and quickly found out that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put her back together again.

The past five years or so have been an intense journey for me. From the hospital, to divorce, and revisiting the dating world (that’s a whole other post, which I will likely NEVER write, HA), there have been plenty of broken places, and plenty of dumb decisions that put me in harm’s way. I’ve had some great falls, so to speak, and I’ve had the thought that Jasmine shared in her video, “Is this just how my life is going to be now?” I have looked to “the king’s men” to fix my broken places, and they fell short. Every. Single. Time. In the moment, it was hell on earth.

Now, when I look back, there is a glow around my memories like a dream sequence in a TV show, where you can tell that it’s a dream because there’s a soft filter on the scene. I know that it’s the Holy Spirit’s presence that makes those hardships almost endearing to me now.

This brings me to the most important line in Jasmine’s song: the King came down.

Humpty Dumpty, broken on the ground, was a victim of his circumstances. The king’s men failed to restore him, as they always will. That nursery rhyme doesn’t have a good ending. There is no resolution to Humpty’s brokenness. Thank GOD that this is not our story.

Jasmine shared that God showed her this song was the resolution to the rhyme. He answered the question, “Is this just how my life is going to be now?” with a resounding, “NO,” because He had already provided a way out by His death on the cross. The King came down. Because of that gift we can step outside of victimhood and into victory to become overcomers! Our stories become about His salvation rather than our destruction.

The King came down and brought a healing that only He could. His ‘men’ were never empowered to save me. The things of this world were never going to be enough. They weren’t created to save me, but to serve me and serve God’s purposes, and when I put all my hope in them to be my healing and salvation, guess what? They failed me, I failed God, and I was even more broken than when I started. When the King came down, His glory demanded that I look to Him instead of what was broken all around me.

When we turn our gaze from the King’s men to the King, our perspective changes. It’s not always instant, because there is a process to healing (one we have to go through repeatedly, unfortunately), we must learn to let go, forgive, and trust God in ways we haven’t before. Our hearts can receive a retro-active healing because God is above space and time, and this process is what makes it possible to look back on our worst moments and see them with that dream-like glow, through the eyes of the King, the Healer, our Father. Pain and trauma become precious when we can see the circumstances through God’s eyes, because every moment of our lives is precious and valuable to Him. Nothing is wasted in the Kingdom of Heaven, and He has a plan and purpose for all of it.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. -Romans 5:2-5

My question for you today is, do you want the King’s men, or do you want the King? Only one offers the resolution your soul needs. Only one can truly put you back together again. Only the King can make you an overcomer. Only in His redemption can we come broken yet be received as whole.