Your darkest hour was, in actuality, your shining moment.
For, in the authenticity of your emotional experience
was your key to your liberation
from the pattern that keeps you rooted
in the pain of separation from who you really are.
- Rasha
 | |
| artist Elena Ray |
I spent the first 25+ years of my life avoiding, complaining about, and cursing my own brokenness.
And despite all the cliches, all the well-meaning advice to see pain as a messenger for growth, I could not get behind the idea that it was anything other than the negative result of a misplaced personal decision, unfortunate accident or malicious intent.
And then I got married.
Marriage is a study in embracing brokenness.
Your own broken places are in your face every day, inside of every argument, every ego-centric assertion, every snide remark meant to cut the other person down to size. But these are the sins easy to apologize for. The ones that feel impossible to absorb are the ones you cannot apologize for, the ones that are your authentic nature at odds with your idea of 'What I Should Be' and 'What I Should Do'. These sins that are no sins.
In my case, the broken places have been thrown into sharp relief more and more in these last few years precisely because I have a life partner in my husband who refuses to do anything less than support my most private, lofty dreams. I become accountable to them because I am supported to reach for their celestial beauty.
And find my self wanting.
Lacking.
Broken.
And I realized something today.
There is a rest in brokenness.
You lie on that hard ground, unable to function as you did before. So you lie there.
There are no more "shoulds" because the luxury of self recrimination was taken from you when you fell and broke to pieces on the earth below. "Cannot" doesn't matter now, either. All that exists in this moment is 'What Is Now.'
This.
And there is beauty in the brokenness.
It is a beauty of constellations in the scars, of tides in the tears, the heat of fire in the bleeding of you.
In the abrupt quiet that follows an unexpected injury, a sacred silence fills you. And because there is nothing left in you that can create, push, force, be, or drive into, there is a blessed empty space, to be filled by something other than all the crazed and busy thinking, the manic achieving, and the over-scheduled hours.
This blessed, beautiful brokenness is the prayer that summons the spirit, calls forth the angels, lays us down gently.
In these seasons of humble brokenness, we are opened, utterly. There is no protecting yourself here. This is the stripping away of ego-driven, striving conception.
Let there be grace.
Let there be mercy.
Allow the broken places to show you their beautiful rest.
The broken stick on the forest floor is the branch who earned her rest.
I bless the stick.
I bless the branch.
I bless the rest.
And despite all the cliches, all the well-meaning advice to see pain as a messenger for growth, I could not get behind the idea that it was anything other than the negative result of a misplaced personal decision, unfortunate accident or malicious intent.
And then I got married.
Marriage is a study in embracing brokenness.
Your own broken places are in your face every day, inside of every argument, every ego-centric assertion, every snide remark meant to cut the other person down to size. But these are the sins easy to apologize for. The ones that feel impossible to absorb are the ones you cannot apologize for, the ones that are your authentic nature at odds with your idea of 'What I Should Be' and 'What I Should Do'. These sins that are no sins.
In my case, the broken places have been thrown into sharp relief more and more in these last few years precisely because I have a life partner in my husband who refuses to do anything less than support my most private, lofty dreams. I become accountable to them because I am supported to reach for their celestial beauty.
And find my self wanting.
Lacking.
Broken.
And I realized something today.
There is a rest in brokenness.
You lie on that hard ground, unable to function as you did before. So you lie there.
There are no more "shoulds" because the luxury of self recrimination was taken from you when you fell and broke to pieces on the earth below. "Cannot" doesn't matter now, either. All that exists in this moment is 'What Is Now.'
This.
And there is beauty in the brokenness.
It is a beauty of constellations in the scars, of tides in the tears, the heat of fire in the bleeding of you.
In the abrupt quiet that follows an unexpected injury, a sacred silence fills you. And because there is nothing left in you that can create, push, force, be, or drive into, there is a blessed empty space, to be filled by something other than all the crazed and busy thinking, the manic achieving, and the over-scheduled hours.
This blessed, beautiful brokenness is the prayer that summons the spirit, calls forth the angels, lays us down gently.
In these seasons of humble brokenness, we are opened, utterly. There is no protecting yourself here. This is the stripping away of ego-driven, striving conception.
Let there be grace.
Let there be mercy.
Allow the broken places to show you their beautiful rest.
The broken stick on the forest floor is the branch who earned her rest.
I bless the stick.
I bless the branch.
I bless the rest.
this is where i am, darlin. thank you for wrapping this being, this experience in such tender love. the last few months have been a study in hyperventilation despite my concerted efforts to breathe deep, slow, long. i'm exhausted, uninspired, half-dead, in an eyes-half-closed stupor. but i bless the stick. i bless the branch. i bless the rest. thank you.
ReplyDeleteSitting right here in this same space with you, dear Rain.... it's a strange comfort knowing that someone is struggling with the breath at the same time you are. I'm here holding space for you, beloved.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Absolutely where I am. Blessings.
ReplyDeleteSo glad this resonated for you, and thank you for speaking here. Blessings, friend.
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