Feeling a little Banged up? Excellent! This post is for you!

So what’d you do this weekend?

Me? I watched Seabiscuit. (I’m sure I did other things, too, but for expediency’s sake, and to spare you the minutiae, this is the relevant takeaway).

Have you seen it? Oh, you really should. And they’re not even paying me to say it. That’s how strongly I feel.

If you have seen it, then you know why it tracks with me. It’s the ultimate Misfit Movie.

Misfit people. Misfit horse. Misfits upon Misfits, converging in awkward splendor. Brokenness meets beauty. That’s the best review I can do without trekking into spoiler territory… but I will share this one quote with you:

You don’t throw a whole life away just cause it’s banged up a little.

Old Horse Trainer Guy, Seabiscuit

It made me think about my own banged up life, and all the beauty and redemption due to the timely intervention of various Old Horse Trainer Guys, providentially placed along my path.

But it made me think about you, too, because, well, that’s why we’re all here – to encourage our fellow Misfits! Of course, I may or may not know anything about your own banged up life… and even if I do, I also know that most of us carry around a lot of our bang ups, quietly and stealthily, under the radar. It’s just the way we are. Never let them see you sweat, right? It sold a lot of deodorant back in the day.

But one thing, well actually, a few things I know for certain, are:

1) Sometimes you can’t help but sweat, no matter how good your anti-perspirant is.

Even when we successfully “hide” whatever it is we’re trying to hide from the world so that no one thinks we’re weak, it’s going to find its way out, somehow. It always does. Maybe not in obvious ways. But brokenness always manifests. And sooner or later we need to reckon with it.

2) The wisdom of the Old Horse Trainer Guy applies to YOU. Right now.

Sure, you’ve got brokenness. Me, too. You got gaps, I got gaps.

We all got gaps, granted.

But just because we’ve got gaps… just because we’re banged up a little, doesn’t mean our lives are throwaways. And not only that, but I would also venture to say that our gaps, our bang-ups most likely have everything to do with the glory of why we’re here in the first place. That is, often it’s the case that the very place of our wounding is in the very place of our wiring. I like the way John Eldredge puts it:

“The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault
on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.”

In other words, to one degree or another, we ALL have experienced a brutal assault on the very core of our being (ie. our heart). We are here to bring glory to God through the way He wired us- our talents, our strengths, our quirks, all of it. And there IS an enemy that hates the idea of God getting glory, and ipso facto, hates you. (Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but what kind of a Misfit Friend would I be if I withheld such an important factoid?) And thus, the assault. A lot of it is the circumstances of life, true, but let’s not kid ourselves. We are really good at self-sabotage, too, for a variety of reasons that are too long for a Monday morning blogpost, but for now let’s just call it the downside of humanity.

But the point is, even our self-inflicted state of banged-upness is not grounds for being thrown away. Oh, far from it. There is something GLORIOUS about you. Something worth redeeming. And you can’t do it yourself. If you could, you would’ve by now. But that’s actually great news! You weren’t meant to redeem yourself. I think you know by now where I’m going with this… so I won’t beat the horse (see what I did there? I’m nothing if not puntastic... and in case you don’t know what I’m talking about… go to my About page)

So yeah, that’s it. You are pretty much Seabiscuit, my Misfit Friend.
That’s what I wanted to share today. And if you haven’t seen it yet… what are you waiting for? Watch it!

Go on now. We’re done here.

For now… ;^)