To be a human being is to be stained glass—beautiful in our brokenness, but a collection of many parts nonetheless. Someone once wrote, “You are every age you have ever been.” They were speaking poetically but also naming something literal. You are six, eight, twelve, seventeen, and also your current age.

The human heart and soul were designed for Eden. We live far from it, far off in a war-torn world that assaults the soul from the moment we take our first breath. (Even beforehand; in the womb a child can experience rejection, fear, even abandonment as their mother feels and projects those things into the pregnancy.) Sometimes the harm we experience in this world fragments the heart. Parts of us break off and remain stuck at that particular age until Jesus comes to heal them.

We can call these areas of brokenness “young places” precisely because of the childish ways we respond when those areas are retraumatized. For example, someone gets mad at you, perhaps even yells at you. Part of you wants to run and hide in the closet— not the mature response of a forty-seven-year-old woman but that of a six-year-old girl. Or, the compulsion you have for ice cream whenever you are feeling anxious—not the mature reaction of a thirty-two-year-old man but rather the cry of a little boy who only ever felt loved when he was given ice cream. Most of us have had the experience, usually triggered by an upsetting event, where our internal world suddenly feels much younger than our current age. This is indication of the fragmentation caused by trauma, and let me add that when we are young it doesn’t take massive trauma to fragment our heart.

Becoming aware of young places within you is a widely accepted practice in the therapeutic community. But our Creator foretold this centuries ago when the coming of his Messiah was announced in Isaiah 61:

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners. (verse 1)

The Hebrew for “brokenhearted” as used here is not a metaphor. It is blunt and vividly descriptive. Leb is Hebrew for “heart,” and shabar the word for “broken.” It is referring to a reality, not a poetic image. Elsewhere Isaiah uses shabar to describe a statue that has fallen to the ground and shattered into pieces. Actual fragmentation, not metaphor.

Jesus chooses Isaiah 61 to announce his purpose in coming when he steps into the synagogue for his first public moment in Luke 4, placing the healing of our fragmentation at the epicenter of his mission to the human race. This is good news beyond our wildest hopes.

Remember now—Jesus is your Creator. He planned on you, fashioned you in your mother’s womb, knows everything about you and everything about your story.

Jesus is also able to access hidden things within us, for he knows the depths and mysteries of our being. With his help, and the help of the Holy Spirit, we can locate our fragmented parts and give Jesus access to them for their restoration.

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