UNIQUE BROKENNESS

Reading this devotional by Henri Nouwen puts into perspective each and every one of us who have been broken. Or on their way to full brokenness. Just how unique our brokenness is to us. To God. To others. How our pain is so very personal to us. There are no two human beings who will experience the "exact" same pain of brokenness. We all have our own uniqueness to being broken.

Emotional scars take longer to heal than physical ones. My main goal is to find healing in God.

I have found out in my brokenness that my hidden wounds, when I try to stuff them do not heal. If anything they fester. Those hidden wounds that were dormant so long in me are now awakening as my brokenness advances. As my desire to heal increases. Still, I believe the Lord is regulating what memories and feelings I am now experiencing.

I am beginning to feel in my heart and experience in my gut the deep hurt. The knot in my stomach, the trouble swallowing, the continued crying, the anxiety and fear.

The hurt of feeling abandoned, (the divorce of my parents and the ripping apart of my family, leaving my childhood friends, my home) rejected, (the lack of attention and nurturing from my father) ridiculed and criticized (the slamming stinging words from my father when not living up to his expectations).

Many years holding on to my hurts have emotionally drained me. Not releasing my pain. The traumatic times as a child of 10 witnessing my family unit being ripped apart. My parents verbal fighting. My father moving out. My mother re-marring shortly thereafter and her and I having to move far away to start a new life.

Knowing God is my healer I need to reveal my hurt, and as my t. says, fire my "earthly father" and replace him with my "Heavenly Father."

I desire to get to the place where there is total trust in what my Heavenly Father is doing and trusting Him with others to help me along my process in order for me to finally break and be set free!

Our brokenness reveals something about who we are. Our sufferings and pains are not simply bothersome interruptions of our lives; rather, they touch us in our uniqueness and our most intimate individuality. The way I am broken tells you something unique about me. The way you are broken tells me something unique about you. That is the reason for my feeling very privileged when you freely share some of your deep pain with me, and that is why it is an expression of my trust in you when I disclose to you something of my vulnerable side. Our brokenness is always lived and experienced as highly personal, intimate and unique. I am deeply convinced that each human being suffers in a way no other human being suffers.... In fact, I am more grateful for a person who can acknowledge that I am very alone in my pain than for someone who tries to tell me that there are many others who have a similar or a worse pain.

(Henri J. M. Nouwen)