Broken things are sometime hard to find.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” 

― Rumi

I reached the age of 40 having never broken any bones in my body.

Interestingly, each of my four children had broken bones, a couple of them several. I had experienced the wincing of watching them with limbs that were swollen and turned the wrong way. Held their hands as the cast was set. I had encouraged them during the rigors of physical therapy and the healing process. But I could only reach into my emphatic mother's heart to imagine the real pain and determination of recovery. 

It was around that age, however, that I realized my brokenness was not in my bones.

Events in my life were chaotic and out of synch. The outer shell of confidence I had carefully built around myself began to crack. In what I can only call miraculous or fortunate, I somehow made it to a safe place where I could re-evaluate where I was. I was teetering, and I could feel it. With the urging and insistence of a loving man, I found my way to a Counselor who quickly diagnosed my pain. She told me I was broken inside, and that I could no longer cover it with my survivor instincts. If I wanted to be healed, I had to pull off the band-aid. 

And I gotta tell you; it hurt like hell.

In fact, it hurt so much that I could only endure it for a matter of months. I finally decided I needed a break. My Counselor told me I needed to keep going, but I told her I thought I was good enough. I had found the broken, after all, so now I could just work on fixing it.

But 'fixing' it was not going to be nearly enough.

You can superglue a broken cup back together, but you probably won't be able to drink out of it again. It will leak. And that's what happened to me when I tried to glue the broken spots inside of me. I leaked, and this time, in order not to allow it to hurt anyone else, I internalized the reactions and trauma. The result was never feeling peaceful, always worried about when the other shoe would drop, and punishing myself for not being able to get a handle on what was wrong. I wasn't healing - I was just managing.

In this managing, I was keeping out the wisdom and light of truth that could heal me.

I can't tell you when or how it happened, but I decided to dig again to find the brokenness and allow light to flood it. It wasn't pretty, and it required me to take a lot of responsibility for my healing. I had to be tough on myself, and I had to weed out some habits and relationships that were keeping me in brokenness. Am I completely healed now? No way. These are big old cracks that are filled with a lot of dirt. But am I on the way? Oh yes.

Take heart. Be bold. Keep looking for your brokenness.

Take a breath, and rip off the bandages or chisel out the superglue.

Let the light enter you at your wound and begin to heal. 

Cheers.