I love to look at old houses that some would look at and say they are broken beyond repair or they are so broken they are passed by and not even noticed.

With these houses my imagination gets to run wild. I can imagine who lived there, happiness and pain that took place in those walls. I also see them as the beautiful building that they once were, and could be again.

This is not much different from what we do with people. We see the outer shell and judge, it is hard not to. I have judged forgetting the real person. I find it is easy to miss treat others if we stay shallow and look at the outward only. Isn’t it so much easier to dismiss them if we can write them off in the story we perceive instead of what is?

We all have a story and some of us show the brokenness more so than others, in fact it’s the ones that push the hurt onto others that are so broken, needing the most repair.

How many times do we pass by the homeless, mentally ill or a person that looks or smells.  We turn the other way not seeing that they once shined. They had a day before the brokenness took over. A day before the lights shut off, the door closed and someone left. A day before the weeds of hurt and pain took over. A day when they had curb appeal.

If only the next time we pass by these people we stop just for one and really see them as someone who is broken but not beyond repair.

I am so thankful that God looked at me, didn’t give up but has compassion sees me in my brokenhearted state. Now I need to show others that compassion.

Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.