I am Not Broken Like I Used to Be

I read this book recently about the tales of a crack addict. The tales of well-educated, successful young gent who chose crack over all else for a long time. There was a point in the book when he had copious amounts of crack in his hotel room and he had jugs of vodka and he had a bottle of pills he intended to consume. And when reading this sordid account of a well-educated, successful young gent's untimely demise, I had an epiphany.

I'm not broken like I used to be.
I'm not broken at all, actually.
I used to be, though.
A terrible mess, really.
I'm not broken like I once was.
I'm light and free and punch drunk love.
I still get tweaky and squeaky and scared,
But He calms me and I know I'm spared.
I'm not broken.
I'm repaired.

By the grace of God, I'm not broken like I used to be.

And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my grace comes in the form of Christopher David Broussard. A line from the same book put it all together for me.

“...he loved me…knowing what he knew, seeing what he’d seen, putting up with what he chose to put up with, he was the only one who ever could. The question I never asked was why.”

God gave me the gift of Christopher's love, because I needed real-life unconditional love in order to truly understand that I am forgiven. And I guess, I picked up that random crack addict story while perusing the bargain bin, because God wanted me to see that I am not broken like I used to be.