Fifteen years later, my husband and I hold up this hardest thing we’ve walked through as also the thing for which we are most grateful_Marnie Hammar quote for Begin Within Gratitude Series.

It’s been fifteen years since I learned that God doesn’t throw broken things away. That instead, He gives them value and beauty and purpose.

The truth is, for a long time, I didn’t know I was actually broken. I loved Jesus dearly. I worked hard to do what I thought He wanted me to do, and if I’m being really honest, I even felt kind of good about how I was doing in that effort. I brought Him with me through all the seasons — those brutal teen years, the I’m-so-wise college ones, the striving-in-my-early career ones, and into my early marriage. Things hummed along.

My new husband and I went to church from the beginning, missing very few Sundays. We bought a house. Our careers grew. We dreamed dreams. Then, nine years into our marriage, we were blindsided by the exposure of quiet sin that sat deep in our marriage. Our hearts both broke open.

How did God let this happen? Hadn’t He been with us?

Didn’t we go to church and tithe and work with the youth group?

We weren’t living rebelliously. We weren’t “bad people.”

What happened?

As we grieved and prayed and sought wise counsel, we began to recognize ourselves in the pages of Revelation: “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot… For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” (Revelation 3:15-16, ESV).

Was it possible that, as we sat in those pews, we were neither hot nor cold?

Was it possible that our dutiful faith had blinded us to His more?

Had we trusted our checklists instead of Jesus?

Had we allowed filled-in boxes to cover our brokenness instead of His grace?

We gave Him Sundays, but not our hearts.

We didn’t know.

We didn’t know how we were broken until we landed in that season. Fifteen years later, my husband and I hold up this hardest thing we’ve walked through as also the thing for which we are most grateful. God led us to new life through it. We learned that it wasn’t about giving Him more — it was about getting more of Him. I could scratch out lists and lists of the reasons we’re thankful, but these two learnings sit at the top:

In the broken, we learned how to love God.

Don’t let me give you the impression that we’ve got this all figured out now. We still forget to invite Him into all the places. We still make messes. But in that season, as we leaned into Jesus with a new desperation, we discovered the gift of just being in His presence. We finally glimpsed what it looks like to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). We finally learned that He wants us to love Him first, above all else.

best quotes about broken things by Marnie Hammar for Begin Within Gratitude Series

In the broken, we learned to listen to the Holy Spirit.

All those years, we knew of Jesus, but had no real understanding of who or what the Holy Spirit is. We knew the verses — when Jesus said it’s better that He goes, so that the Spirit may come (John 16:7), and when He promised that if we’re His sheep, we’ll hear His voice (John 10:27). But we still didn’t know, until this season, how to listen for the Holy Spirit, and to wait on Him to guide and direct us. We can still miss (or ignore…) His voice — but knowing that we can expect to hear Him when we read His Word and pray and walk through our days changed everything.

When we were in the middle of that season, gratitude was the farthest thing from my heart and mind. I wasn’t thankful. If you and I were sitting over coffee, you would see the tears in my eyes. But fifteen years out, we have collected countless graces and evidences and miracles of His ever-faithful goodness in all things — even the many hard ones that have come since. Each of those play like a slideshow in my mind as I say to you, that I am, indeed, grateful.

For years, we kept our story close. If you knew us then, you wouldn’t have known of this chapter in our story. But over the years, God directed us to offer our story quietly, behind closed doors, to those who needed it. We discovered that, because of our healed scars, we both feel a burden to offer the hope that brokenness doesn’t get the final say.

Friend, are you in a hard season that feels far from gratitude? Do you wonder how it’s possible to be grateful while standing in hard places? In the betrayal, in the rejection, in the disappointment, in the places of fear and overwhelm? If it feels trite or Pollyanna or even hurtful to place those two sentiments together, please know how much I understand, and please know it might not come immediately.

But my prayer is that in the pain and the ache, your heart may hear His quiet invitation to come. Even in the broken, may we discover the gratitude that comes with His presence.

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. The righteous person faces many troubles, but the LORD comes to the rescue each time. For the LORD protects the bones of the righteous; not one of them is broken! … The LORD will redeem those who serve him. No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned,” (Psalm 34:18-20, 22).

Meet Marnie Hammar

Marnie Hammar, a blog and devotion writer, speaker, loud laugher, and curator of the Hear Him Louder Essay Series, writes for Begin Within Gratitude Series.

Marnie encourages women that freedom isn’t found in perfectly completed checklists, but in knowing God deeper and hearing Him louder.

A writer and speaker, Marnie is also the curator for the Hear Him Louder Essay Series, and a regular contributor for the Devotion Team and the Blog Contributor Team for The Joyful Life Magazine. Wife for 25 years and boy mama (16, 13, & 10), Marnie’s non-writing life revolves around taming the stinky, scraping off the sticky, and distributing boys to the places they go in suburban Cincinnati. Her favorites are cheering for her boys from soccer sidelines, settling in for family movie nite, and laughing with her friends. Loudly. With some cackling.

You can find Marnie at marniehammar.com, Instagram (@marniehammar) or Facebook (marniehammarwriter). If you’re interested in knowing God deeper, subscribe to receive a FREE five-day devotional, called “Closer: Five Days to Hearing Him Louder.”

Where to find her . . .

Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.

If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.

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If you would like to cultivate rhythms in addition to gratitude that will empower you live on mission in your neighborhood, check out Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. This small book will help you make a big impact in your neighborhood as you learn to let missional living flow from the inside out. Get the 30-day missional living challenge free when you purchase the book.