“I am broken.”

We sit on the bed; crossed legs and open hearts. It has been a long night and an even longer morning.

I curl myself around you as you weep. Shoulders heave and cleansing tears fall. A truth too long-held is released.

Confession. Omission. Anxiety. Fear. Agony. Comfort. Compassion. Love.

These all live in the small spaces between us.

Comprehension crystalizes mysteries that had surrounded us in undercurrent. One fact arched over a span of years and a lifetime of hurt and delivered right here; to this bed, in this room, on this tender morning.

Despite the rest, there is always hope in the truth.

~~~

“Oh, sweet baby, you are not broken. Not in the way that you think.”

Yes, it’s true. Your heart is cracked into a million jagged pieces. You have carried memories of dark nights and trust betrayed. Your body has tenderly sheltered a lifetime of shame. You have buried your wounds beneath scars and your scars behind words unsaid and pain unseen.

And you feel broken. Oh love, of course you do. Your soul is patched—holes stuffed with unmet hope and despair and desperation. You have been viewing your reflection in a mirror broken over and over again by pain and shame. You consider all of this your due. Your secret. Only yours to bear.

That ends now. It must end now.

Because yes, you are broken. And yes, you are perfect. And you are never, ever alone.

~~~

We are in this together. None of us truly walk in isolation, even when we cannot sense the presence of another for miles upon miles.  Even in the worst of our desolation. Even during our coldest 3 am breakdown. Even when we shut out the world and spin in circles until we collapse.

Even then the light still gets in. Even then the heart still opens and reaches, tendrils of hope curling and bending toward slivers of light. Upward, outward, in all directions—seeking light at all cost.

One way or another, we all grow toward the light.

We are resilient like that. Our hearts are stubborn like that. Our spirits—even under the heaviest of burdens—ultimately wild and free. And eventually, when we least expect it, the light finds its way in. It always does.

And then everything is illuminated. And all of our aching pieces, all the shattered bits, all the places we think we must tuck away from the world are bathed in radiance. And only then does something become clear…

The closer you get to broken, the more it begins to look like whole. Like beauty. Like breathtaking truth.

And the truth is that we are all beautiful. And we are all broken. And even when you consider all of our hopelessly fractured pieces, all of us inherently whole.

Life cracks us into unrecognizable shards of former incarnations. Slivers of our hurt, and our pain and our shame nestle next to fragments of our truth, our divinity, our fierce reclamation of power.

It is this very brokenness that allows us to knit together, kaleidoscope style. And we spin and shift and turn to the light until we appear brilliant, lit from within. Suddenly we are revealed; unexpected beauty born directly from brokenness.

Willing to break in order to become.

~~~

Your sobs have quieted. I hold you in my arms and radiate as much peace as I am able, hoping that some of it transmits directly to the center of your aching heart.

I cannot heal you. I cannot fix this. But I can help you gather the scattered and broken parts and hold them to the light. I want you to catch a glimpse of what I see, a kaleidoscope configuration composed of color and geometry and all of your broken pieces arranged in imperfectly perfect symmetry.

You are broken.
You are whole.
You are beautiful.

I honor you.