brokenness – All the Wonders

I Hear the Sound of Breaking Hearts

I hear the sound of breaking hearts.

Tender, young hearts, open and hopeful,
Facing betrayal from the church which formed them.

Scarred, resilient, older hearts,
Once-healed wounds torn open by hatred and prejudice.

I know the pain of a breaking heart.
The shock, the sadness,
The emptiness that has no end.

Beloveds,
You are held,
You are loved.

Your wounds are tended
By the One who knew you before you were imagined,
The One who whispers,
“I created you,
And I love you
Just the way you are.”

Henri Nouwen said it this way:

Long before your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your school, your church touched you, loved you, and wounded you — long before that you were held safe in an eternal embrace.
—Henri J. M. Nouwen
Our First Love

The Place of Our Brokenness

Here in this season of Lent, we are so aware of brokenness in our world, in society, in our relationships, in our selves. And that’s the amazing thing about God’s presence in the world. God transforms the brokenness that we all have … even Christ’s brokenness on the cross.

God, the Great Transformer, the Great Healer, weaves us back together so that the place of our wound, the place of our brokenness becomes the place of our greatest strength.

Watch Video.

Discarded

I found a paper crane
Lying in the road,
Discarded, tossed away,
Tire tracks across its broken wing.

And I thought,
So this is what we’ve come to
In this broken world of ours.

Peace, discarded
and run over in the street.
Bombs falling on schools,
Refugee children dying in the desert,
Missiles blasting innocents from the sky.

Where is wisdom?
Who is the keeper of justice?
What has happened to the way of peace?

Kyrie eleison.
Lord, have mercy.
Help us.