Spoiled Rotten, Saved Broken

When Pain Becomes a Mercy and Surrender Becomes Survival

This morning during our On Awakening group, we read Chapter 2 from Sought Through Prayer and Meditation: "Pain... The Great Motivator."
Most of the men shared about the gift of desperation — that blessed moment when pain broke them open enough to finally surrender.

But what hit me hard was realizing:
I don't have that gift.
Not yet.
I’m still running on my own damn self-will, poisoning my soul with arrogance, ego, and entitlement.

Then PM — God bless him — dropped the phrase "spoiled rotten,"
and it cracked something deep inside me.
That's my truth.
That's my disease.

I grew up the baby of the family, rarely held truly accountable.
Sure, I'd get in trouble — but real consequences? Change? Ownership?
Not really.
And here I am, decades later, spiritually bloated and emotionally bankrupt,
still demanding the world bend to me, still refusing the furnace of true change.

Today’s share is raw.
It’s not polished.
It's not pretty.
It’s a prayer, a poem, a punch in the gut.
It’s the confession of a man who is still spoiled, still rotting — but daring to believe that even spoiled things can be broken open and made new.

Maybe pain isn't punishment.
Maybe it's mercy.
Maybe it’s how God finally gets our attention.

Here’s what poured out:

Spoiled Rotten, Saved Broken

I was born into the easy road,
wrapped in the soft arms of "you'll be fine,"
spoon-fed lies and comfort until I mistook privilege for proof.

No hunger, no hard lessons,
no desperate nights shivering in consequence.
Just a rotten harvest of self.
Spoiled sweet, until the sweetness turned to stench.

I learned to cheat the clock.
Blame the day.
Eat the anger.
Smile and shrug while the rot deepened.

Now I'm a man,
and the rot is still there.
Still kicking.
Still screaming,
still thinking the world owes me one more fucking handout.

Pain knocks.
And I deadbolt the door.
Desperation whispers.
And I blast the TV louder.

But today...
today, a crack.

Then I heard it.
Spoiled Rotten.
And the truth hit like a brick to the chest.

No —
I'm not desperate.
I'm not surrendered.
I'm spoiled.

And if I stay this way,
I will rot all the way through.

So God, hear me:
Not with pretty words.
Not with hollow promises.

Hear me in the growl of my pride breaking.
Hear me in the sob I won't admit to anyone else.
Hear me in the only prayer I can still choke out:

Break me. Burn me. Save me.
Split the spoiled seed open. Make it live.

I'm not asking to feel better.
I'm asking to be made new.

Rip down the idol of my self.
Build in me a heart that needs You more than it needs to win.
Take the rottenness and grow roots deep in pain if that's what it takes.

I will trust the crack before the collapse.
I will trust the fire before the feast.

I don't have the gift of desperation yet.
But God — I trust You to deliver it when I'm ready to live.

Amen.