Being Broken

Near the end of the semester I attended a campus event called Take Back the Night. It was a sexual assault awareness night, where anyone could go up and talk about what had happened to them. It was an open mic for sorrows.
Near the end, a young woman from the row in front of me stood up and walked to the front. As she turned around to face the crowd, you would see the animal-like rage that was in her heart. She was angry at the world, angry at herself, angry at the men who had mistreated her. She told us on three separate accounts in which she was abused and let herself be abused. After the last story, she cried aloud through her tears, "I'm so tired of being broken. I just want to be fixed!"
This event was the most depressing thing I've ever been to. Women would talk about their assault in front of 300 strangers, but they would not confide in a friend. They would swear by their counselors and psychologists, and all the while still proclaiming their brokenness. What they need is not psychotherapy or an "outlet" to pour their anger and hurt into, they need God.
Psalm 5:17 says, "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." These women were broken. They were broken past the point of all healing unless it came from the Father. I think what saddened me the most is that many of them would reject this fact. Counselors and psychologists can only go so far. They cannot pierce the soul. The healing that they bring is only a temporary fix for an eternal problem.
This sends me to reflect on my own life and sinful nature. How often have I done the same, turning away from the God who loves me? How often do I feel with the author of the hymn as he cries, "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love!" How far I wander off the narrow and straight. It is only when we eat a large portion of the humble pic and admit that we were wrong that peace and growth can flow from the broken ground. It is only when we admit that Christ is Lord that true everlasting healing will come.