MBaisden Live: Iyanla Vanzant On Book "Peace From Broken Pieces"

Today Michael Baisden will have Iyanla Vanzant on the show talking about her book “Peace From Broken Pieces.” The acclaimed author and motivational speaker survived childhood rape, physical and verbal abuse, teen pregnancy, abusive relationships — all by the time she was 30. The next 25 years would be marked by celebratory highs — a successful career; five New York Times best-selling books; a place on The Oprah Winfrey Show; the launch of her nationally syndicated television show, Iyanla — and devastating lows: dismissal from Oprah, the cancellation of Iyanla, her daughter’s death, her third divorce, going broke and losing her home to foreclosure. How could an educated, millionaire spiritual guru like Vanzant experience this?

It’s a question explored honestly in her revealing new book, Peace From Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You’re Going Through. While these tragedies could be enough to push some people over the edge — and yes, she did consider taking that leap — Vanzant instead freed herself from the grasp of self-pity and took a thorough, honest examination of her life. Below is an excerpt from the book.

EXCERPT:It is often difficult to identify the exact moment that your life falls apart. In most cases, it is not a one-shot deal. If you ask most people who have had the experience of losing everything they love or believe in, they will probably say it was not one telephone call or one letter, one revelation or realization that caused the collapse of life as they knew it. I now understand that my life fell apart one piece at a time. Piece by piece; one experience, one situation, and one circumstance at a time, until I found myself standing in the midst of a heap of broken promises, splintered relationships, and shattered dreams. It is not a place I ever imagined I would find myself again, after I had gotten through it the first fifty or sixty times.

The breaking down into pieces of a life is a painful thing to watch and even more painful to endure. Even more devastating is that as your life begins to unravel, day by day, piece by piece, there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. You see what is happening. You know what is happening. And, you want anything other than what is happening to happen. You see, somewhere deep inside, we all know that lives are not built to fall apart. That is just not what lives are meant to do. The lives we are given by God are meant by God to grow, to blossom and flourish. The reality is, however, lives do crumble.

I now realize that lives fall apart when they need to be rebuilt. Lives fall apart when the foundation upon which they were built needs to be re-laid. Lives fall apart, not because God is punishing us for what we have or have not done. Lives fall apart because they need to. They need to because they weren’t built the right way in the first place. I came to this realization one day, after many days, weeks, months, and years of trying to fix the cracks in my foundation. One day, one moment of time, as I sat helplessly surveying the broken pieces of my mind, heart, and life, I recognized that a broken life is a test of faith of the highest order.

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