Five-minute Friday: Broken

Broken are the words that spread from my heart to fingers and spill onto blank pages.  Broken are the words on the back of my tongue, the ones I don't always speak, but they pool in the depths of my eyes.  Broken is my story, is our story, are their stories.  Broken are the phrases - the "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and the "God gives all things" and the "Find beauty in suffering," because they're not enough.  Because I wonder if whatever doesn't kill me, sometimes, leaves me barely surviving.  Or limping.  

Broken.

And how long will we sing our broken songs and lie down in brokenness and awake peering through broken mirrors, how long?  And I know with all my heart, I believe in the beauty in brokenness and the mourning turned to dancing and the all-things-made-new and the we walk by faith not by sight. 

So broken we sit here on our red velvet bench as the sun sets, candles flickering light in the dim room, filtering peace through cracks in our hearts.  And we open our Book of Common Prayer and find comfort in the words that broken saints have prayed for centuries, words we don't have to formulate ourselves.

We remember the broken ones in our families, in our lives and whisper broken prayers of faith for healing and wholeness, for hope and comfort, for the presence of God who dwells with the broken and holds them near.

Lord hear our prayers.

And God does.  And we settle into bed with a hush of peace, tucked beneath grace.  Grace for the questions, the weariness, the journey.  Grace for another day.

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It's been awhile, but I'm joining up with Lisa Jo today, to the prompt of "broken." No, this isn't a work of five minutes...