by Tammy Phillips
June 1, 2026
You may see broken pieces, but I see healed, whole and complete.
As I turn 61, I want you to know, I embraced my 60th year with open arms and a grateful heart! It began with a celebration my husband, along with friends and family, lovingly planned in every detail. Friends and family throughout the world who could not attend sent in a deluge of cards. I have never felt so loved. It was then that I began my year of just being so thankful for EVERYTHING. I was so thankful that I did not want to waste one memory. After opening every card, I chose not to discard one envelope. Inspired by two of my favorite artists, Lauren Dunn, and Nicole Lamar, I created a large heART piece to remember, the day, the week, the year, my life. Each torn piece of envelope or thank you card represents a friend or family member. Each fragment came to symbolize times of joy and pain in my life. Each carefully placed chard reflects how beautifully God orchestrates life. The work now hangs complete for this season, but it is far from finished, just like me.
Know this, although I have been a Christian for most of my life, I was not eating, living, giving, loving, nor doing right by life nor God. People hurt me and I hurt people. I was existing. I felt like David when he said in Psalm 31:12, “I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.” I was shattered. I was tired. I. I felt forgotten. I felt very alone, like something that once had been set aside, cracked, and discarded. I was a broken vessel surrounded by friends and family. Guess what? Those were the very same people that I hurt and who had hurt me. Life.
Sometimes the brokenness is not quiet: “Reproach has broken my heart, And I am full of heaviness.” (Psa 69:20 NKJV) Pain isolates and grief shatters. I was not in a happy nor content place.
Over the last 10-20 years, as I searched for healing in the only place I knew, my God refused to let brokenness have the final word. “The LORD is near the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit. 19 One who is righteous has many adversities, but the LORD rescues him from them all.”(Psa 34:18-19 CSB) God was not distant from my shattered places. In fact, He was right there in the middle of my brokenness with me. God did not and does not turn away from the broken. “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.”(Psa 51:17 CSB) He welcomed it.
What I saw as disqualification and not good enough, God called acceptable. What I felt was unusable, He called valuable. He was not only near. He was healing. “He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.” (Psa 147:3 CSB) God did not ignore the fractures in my life. He filled them with gold, His healing word. He picked them up and He bound them back together. He restored what was torn and worn. He tended and mended. He sewed me back together better than before. “He sent His word and healed them and delivered [them] from their destructions.” (Psa 107:20 NKJV)
Even when the brokenness felt like it was draining life itself…“A broken spirit dries the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22) Jesus stepped in. It’s why he came…some call it the great exchange. He was broken, “This is my body, which is broken for you…” (1 Corinthians 11:24), so that we may be healed, whole and complete. And through Him, brokenness becomes the place where something greater is formed, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) God does not just patch what is damaged. He gives us power in our weakest places. He “fixes us” and “fixes us.” He repairs and restores. Our hearts become steadfast in Him. “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” (Psalm 57:7)
What God holds in the palm of His hand and heals; He transforms from brokenness to beauty and sets our souls free. He establishes us as trees of righteousness. “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the LORD to glorify him. (Isa 61:1-3 CSB)
Jesus came for the broken and bound. Healing is and was His mission. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10 emphasis)
Jesus does not do anything halfway, only wholehearted with excellence. Around five years ago this was my picture of being whole healed and complete.
God does not restore back to “barely surviving.” He restores us into abundant life that is fuller, deeper, and more alive than before the breaking. God’s ability is not limited by what fell apart. “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20) Even our imagination of restoration is too small for what He can do. When I let this word take root in my heart, the picture of my heart changed. I saw beauty in the brokenness. I learned to praise Him in and through the pain.
This Word came alive and well in me. “You have enclosed me behind and before, And [You have] placed Your hand upon me. 6 Such [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high [above me], I cannot reach it. 7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? … 13 For You formed my innermost parts; You knit me [together] in my mother’s womb. 14 I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was being formed in secret, And intricately and skillfully formed [as if embroidered with many colors] in the depths of the earth. (Psa 139:5-7, 13-15 AMP)
Every broken piece that formed my life DOES NOT make sense, but I know every fragment is being held by God, healed by God, restored by God, and rebuilt by God exceedingly, abundantly above all that I could ask of think. So, for every piece, every person, and every pain, I must be…“Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” — Ephesians 5:20
I am thankful for another trip around the SON! I am THANKFUL for every person that has traversed my life. Each of you have taught me about love and life, joy and pain, sunshine, and rain.
I enCOURAGE you “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) and to boldly declare, “you are complete in Him!” (Col 2:10 NKJV)
Complete in Him 