The Feeling of Brokenness
“With my voice I cry to the Lord;
I pour out my complaint before him and tell my trouble before him.
Bring me out of my prison so that I may give thanks to Your Holy name!”
--Verses from a Hebrew hymn, Psalm 142
Each of us has had or will have experiences that really crush us and tear us apart. The Psalmist talks about the feeling, we might want to call it “broken”. One helpful spiritual teacher is Henri Nouwen; he gives these insights about how we can view the times when everything feels shattered:
“The great spiritual call to the children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing. This is not as easy as it sounds. Our world finds it easier to manipulate self-rejecting people than self-accepting people. But when we keep listening attentively to the voice calling us the ‘Beloved children of God’ it becomes possible to live our brokenness, as an opportunity to purify the blessing that rests upon us. Physical, mental or emotional pain lived under the blessing is experienced in ways radically different from physical, mental or emotional pain lived under the curse.”
(page 79, Life of the Beloved)
These insights deserve our attention, I believe. May your day be blessed.
--Ben Keckler
06.14.10
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