I can’t believe it, but after I wrote my last column, “A Call to Community,” I myself was challenged in that call: My car was broken into.

Right in my own community! I felt so violated! I’m thankful that the only damage to my car was a broken window. And, of course, I’m hugely thankful that I was not personally assaulted.

Still, my “personhood” seems somehow less intact. More than just the sheer annoyance of having to replace some valuable items that were taken and having to just make do without other stolen items, I feel different. Haunted, and somehow less at home in my own life.

Honestly, I really didn’t know if I knew what to do about it.

But I realized that the sense of loss, brokenness and violation is too often the unspoken “normal” of many peoples’ lives. We are people haunted by brokenness and loss. The obvious moments include the recent incidents of police brutality leading to the deaths of African-American males, followed by the shooting of police, followed by whole neighborhoods erupting in violence. But it’s deeper than that.

Families are in turmoil, job security seems gone forever, and for many, homelessness is but a paycheck or two away. Social media rants and the harshness of our presidential campaign have called on us to reach out, to “blame” another – to be angry and to stay angry.

But how do we live that way? OK, so we’re broken. We’ve been hurt. Now what?

What’s the remedy for our brokenness? I have to admit, it’s is a hard one – especially after the break-in! To start, we must step away from anger. Now, I don’t mean that we don’t speak clearly about violations of trust or personhood. But as a people we spend way too much time wanting to get back, to get even. It just doesn’t happen. We end up spending all of our next moments in the pain of the first moment. It muddles our thinking and our relationships.

We may well have been victimized, but we need not live as victims.

Where possible, we must demand that our communities speak with the voice of justice. Yes, that may mean pressuring our law enforcement and judicial systems to do a more faithful job of arresting some and ensuring that they are actually brought to trial. When tried, we must insist that the judicial process be truly blind to gender, class and color, so that more will receive the justice appropriate to their offense.

Then we need to think about restoration: What will it take to re-create a sense of safety and wholeness? It would have helped greatly if the person responsible for breaking into my car would have come to me and said they were sorry and brought back all of my valuables. They didn’t. But repentance would have been a great step toward the healing of my brokenness, and maybe a step toward their understanding that they, too, needed healing more than “stuff.”

Then there is forgiveness. I have to admit that forgiveness is much easier when repentance precedes it.

After my car was broken into, I went driving around in my car, with its broken window, looking for the one who stole from me. I soon realized that this was a very unrealistic remedy for my brokenness. I was not equipped to handle that confrontation, nor did I really want to. But I had to confront my feelings about him. I needed to forgive him, so what he had done, so his brokenness, did not continue to live in me.

Forgiveness helps us move forward, whether or not the one who caused the harm says that they’re sorry. Forgiveness is an invaluable source of moving forward; an invaluable source of restoration and healing.

Last, but by no means least, the greatest source of healing is love. Love is not a feeling. Love is an action and a point of view. Love is the active decision to want the best for another, sometimes as much in spite of their behavior as because of it. We cannot always control what happens to us, but we can control our responses. My car was broken into, yet brokenness is not God’s goal for me.

Wholeness is.

Love is.

My faith proclaims that Jesus came to be among us and died for us while we were yet sinners. He didn’t wait and hope for our wholeness. He initiated a whole new way of being so that what was broken might be restored. There are so many who are walking around deeply wounded, including those who have trespassed against us that need to be forgiven and loved just as Jesus has forgiven and continues to love us while we are yet broken and in need of fixing. Love empathizes, bends, and heals our brokenness.

I may never know who broke into my car, but I have forgiven them. I am convinced that if we each recognize our own brokenness, and our own need for forgiveness and love, we will also find that forgiveness and love can be the balm that will bring healing to the brokenness in our community and our world.

And that is something we can start today.

David A. Johnson is the lead pastor at TriWorship Covenant Church (www.triworship.com). He can be reached at 206-861-3844, daaron2001@gmail.com, and on Twitter at @Daaron1980.