June 18, 2025
Blessing in the Brokenness
By: Jordan Weaver Torres
“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 5:3-5
Have you ever broken a bone?
I’ve broken a bone once in my life and it’s a pretty funny story how it happened.
A group of friends were hanging out for my youngest sister’s birthday about a decade ago. Being from a small town, what do you do after you’ve gone to eat? Go to Walmart of course! We had all piled in a couple cars and several of us had ridden in my friend’s jeep. We were getting out of the jeep in the Walmart parking lot and he realized he needed to pull up into the space a little more. Thinking we were all out of the car, he started to drive the car forward. I had one foot on the ground and the other coming out the door when all of the sudden, I felt the jeep run over my foot. I hit the ground and immediately knew my foot was broken. We all ended up bringing the party to the ER and after several hours, sure enough, my foot was broken!
We laugh about it to this day. How many people can say they’ve had their foot driven over by a jeep?
At the time, I was in school at UNC Charlotte and it’s a campus with a good amount of hills. Something you don’t fully notice until you’re on crutches. The thing about breaking is a bone is - you suddenly realize you need help with everything. I needed crutches just to walk. I needed help carrying my stuff. I needed help getting to class and was picked up every day on a golf cart during that time. The neediness can feel frustrating and annoying at times.
The other thing about breaking a bone, especially in your foot, is it forces all your other muscles to grow stronger. When you suddenly can’t use one leg, your other leg is forced to take on more of the load. Your arms get stronger from the crutches. Overall, your body develops more muscle while one area is weaker.
In America, neediness often feels wrong. Weakness feels…well, weak. There’s often a message of “pull yourself up by your boot straps and keep going”. But what happens when life knocks you down and you can’t?
In February, I received a diagnosis that rocked my world and changed my life forever. I was diagnosed with a rare disease I had never even heard of, called Pulmonary Hypertension. It’s a life-threatening disease that you cannot live with, apart from treatment. I found myself in the ICU for over a week and started on aggressive treatment to save my life. My doctor compared this treatment to chemo in its aggressive form and nature.
Overnight, my world changed. I now have a port and medicine pumping through an IV in my body 24/7. I had to quit work which took away half our income. I couldn’t walk more than a few feet without almost passing out. I had gone into right heart failure and was in very bad shape. The girl who loves to be the life of the party and always on the go was very quickly forced to stay home. The side effects wreaked havoc on my body and still are. Oh and did I mention? I had always struggled with intense health anxiety.
But can I let you in on a secret? I have experienced more peace and joy in this time than ever before in my life. Sounds wild, doesn’t it? Actually, it sounds like God.
And here’s where the beauty in the brokenness is: we try really hard to not “need” God in as many areas of our lives as possible. Meaning, we try to put our finances in a place where we don’t lack and have everything we need. We try to eat right and workout enough so that nothing can take away our health. We try to have backup plans when we take a leap of faith so we don’t fall on our faces.
But what happens when you did all that and it’s still not enough? What happens when you don’t know how you’re gonna make it financially? What happens when you don’t know if your body is going to survive because it’s so sick? What happens when you don’t know how you’re gonna physically get out of bed every day? What happens when the anxiety or depression hits out of nowhere? What happens when the job fails or the car falls apart or unexpected life situations just come?
I believe God uses these times in our lives to show us how desperately we actually do need him. To teach us how much we are not in control of our own lives. And to build spiritual muscles in us.
I need God every second of every day like I never have before. I have an almost 2 year old little boy, full of life and energy. I have to get out of bed every single day to take care of him. If God doesn’t come through each day and give me the strength and energy I need, neither of us will make it through the day. And there are many nights that I’m up half the night in pain or sick from my medicine. We have never been stretched financially like we have in this season. But God always gives us what we need, always provides for us. We have found ourselves at the end of ourselves in every way constantly in this season. But you know what? We have never lacked. God gives us the grace and energy to make it another day. He gives me patience with a toddler when I’m at the end of myself and don’t know how to make it through the day. He gives my husband strength to keep taking care of our family.
In Romans 5:3-5, Paul talks about the domino effect that suffering causes in our lives. And it makes it clear that this is a GOOD thing. Paul even tells us to REJOICE in our suffering. Who truly wants to do that when they’re facing any kind of suffering?
This is the domino effect that suffering causes: suffering teaches us endurance which produces character and character produces hope in us. Remember those spiritual muscles I talked about? When we’re weak in areas of our lives due to suffering, what we gain is actually so much greater.
Suffering teaches us about endurance, how to keep going by God’s strength when we’ve run out of our own. Endurance is the grit to not give up when life gets hard. Endurance says “slow down but don’t quit”. Endurance presses in, it doesn’t shrink back.
Endurance then produces character. I recently read a quote: “Everything you are building right now--I mean everything: your family, career, reputation--sits on the cornerstone of your integrity. When that piece is removed, your life might stand precariously like a Jenga tower for a bit, but it WILL fall eventually, and it will ALL fall.” Sharon Hodde Miller
Character and integrity are greatly intertwined. Character is who you are when nobody’s looking. Character does the right thing even when it’s easier to do the wrong thing, even if nobody else is doing the right thing. Character is the ethical, moral, and even spiritual foundation of your behavior. And I don’t know about you, but I want a foundation of my life that lasts. I want character that can walk through the fire and still be in tact.
And lastly, character produces hope. In Romans 5, Paul tells us the best news: “and hope does not put us to shame”. Why? “Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”. The difference between the suffering of a believer vs a non-believer? Hope. We know this life isn’t it for us. So all of this suffering is temporary. Even when it really doesn’t feel like it. And we have the hope of heaven living in us. We have the love of God being poured into our hearts. I have found myself repeating often in this season “Hope does not put us to shame”. We won’t be let down or disappointed with hope carrying us.
I am confident that the love of God is what has carried me through this season. It’s the Holy Spirit living in me that gives me strength moment by moment, that provides my every need.
And because of that? I have a joy that’s not based on my circumstances. A peace that the girl with health anxiety could’ve never imagined having in the face of death. The neediness, the brokenness, is actually the gift. Because to get more of God, to need Him so desperately that we can’t make it without Him is actually the whole point. God knows we can’t make it without Him. I think it breaks His heart when we try to do life without Him, when we try really hard to build our lives in a way that we won’t need Him. The gift of needing God is the gift of getting God. We will get as much of God as we want. We will experience God and find deep relationship with Him the more we know Him. And the more we need Him, the greater we’ll know Him.
I understand greater why we can rejoice in suffering. It’s the strangely wrapped gift that we’d never choose to open. Yet it leads us to the ultimate gift, more of God.
If you find yourself facing any kind of suffering today, be encouraged. God is closer than you know and He is pouring out His love on you. And hope will not put us to shame. Thanks be to God.