There is, after all, the problem of pain,
The problem of suffering.
The “How could this happen?”
And the “Why me?”
I have never thought that pain was necessary.
I have never thought that everything has a reason.
I see suffering everywhere I turn,
And I can’t begin to explain it away.
I don’t pretend to know the answers,
And I don’t have any claim to truth.
But I do believe there is meaning here,
In our brokenness:
For we are all broken.
We are heavy with brokenness.
But there is no healing without hurt,
There is no forgiveness without sin,
No reconciliation without wrong,
And no grace without brokenness.
This state is not a matter of will, or choice.
We all of us are flawed.
There is beauty in the splinters, though;
Restoration in the ruin, and it is this:
That our God does not ask us to be broken
Before we approach the throne,
But meets us, wrecked or spotless
Where we are, loves us, and makes us whole.
