I look around me and all I see are perfect people. They never do anything wrong. They may not have perfect lives but they certainly seem to have it all together. Even when they admit that they have trials in their lives all I see is their facebook and twitter with smiling selfies and funny posts about their lives, and it's hard to see.
They're Broken People too.
I know I've written about being Broken before. Yes, you've probably seen posts on cutting and my own problems with it. But this post is different.
I look around me and all I see is their perfectness. Not the brokenness.
I don't see the pain in your eyes as you lay crying in your bedroom. I don't see you with your knife as you cut designs in your arm. I don't see you overdosing on drugs or listen with you as your parents scream at each other in the background.
I don't see you with your rude coworkers, or that you're friendless. I don't see that you're really sick with no hope of getting better.
And since I don't I tend to assume - you're not broken, which is so, so, so, wrong!!!
The Broken aren't easy to spot and we tend to put people in a box.
Pastor's daughter? She's probably OK. She has her own pastor living with her.
Newly graduate from High School with a job she loves,  a  sweet special someone, and great parents. She has to be OK. She looks like she has the perfect life.
Boy who just lost his father. Now he's the one struggling.
We tend to put people in boxes. I'm not saying the last person on my short list isn't going through a rough time. Maybe he's the one struggling the most.
But is there a scale to who hurts the most? Can I say that Newly Graduate isn't hurting? How was I to know that her boyfriend is verbally abusive or that her parents are getting divorced? How was I to know that Pastor's Daughter hates who he is? That his friends are tempting him to do drugs behind his parents back and he's close to saying yes?

I've seen friends have their ups and downs. I've seen marriages I thought were OK, and learn later they went through a horrible season just a few years ago. I've seen strong Christians say they want to die. I've seen pretty girls wonder if they deserve death. And I've seen normal people feel anything but.
As you know I'm one of those people. And I'm still broken.
And so let's face it - we're a Broken People.
Not just you. Not just me. Every. Single. One. Of. Us.
It's not just us who are hurting, who feel depressed, who wonder where God can be in the biggest problems of our lives, who wonder if death is better then life, or who wonder if there even is a heaven. It's not just me. It's not just you.

Broken Lives come in many forms. It can come in-your-face in the form of drugs, in the form of secretly cursing God for what He's allowed in your life, or simply looking yourself in the mirror and calling yourself "ugly". It could be second guessing your profession and beating yourself up for your decisions.
Brokenness can be gradual or with you all your life. It doesn't have a scale because I don't think we can look at a person and say, "my pain level is greater then your's."
Look around you.
And see a broken generation. A Broken People. A Broken World.
Know that everyone is suffering. That everyone of us have gone through something that makes our world spin.
Maybe deep down they haven't been in pain quite like you, but I do have to say and will continue to proclaim - we are all broken.
And after you've seen that we are all broken it's time to see how that can be fixed.
Only through the blood of Jesus. Only through Him.
There's no way any of us can be truly fixed. No way that terrible things like wars or divorces or broken pasts are ever going to go away.
Unless we take up the cross. Unless we smile freely, love with abandon and shine Jesus' light to this dying world.
Each and everyone of us.