Sitting cross legged on a dirty floor with a hysterical child in my arms, my thoughts had time to wander as I rocked rhythmically back and forth.
I never imagined that this is how I would find wholeness – that this is where I would feel joy again.
I always thought it was the strong people, those with vibrant life and love beating in their hearts who are used to minister to the broken ones.
Who knew that a broken heart is capable of loving more deeply, more protectively, more compassionately?
Is this what God meant by working all things together for good?
Is it possible that my own brokenness could be healed through binding up others’ wounds?
The little girl sobbing in my arms, screaming herself to exhaustion, pauses to check if I’m angry with her yet. I’m not. She examines my calm face, bewildered, then resumes the tantrum, with slightly less force…
There are tears in my eyes, too. She doesn’t know that I understand the anger, the frustration she feels for all that has been taken away. And that that’s why I just hold her, and keep rocking, and don’t condemn her for expressing her pain.
It’s valid. I won’t ask her to be okay with everything she’s lost and all that’s happened to her, because it’s not okay.
Instead I whisper soothing words to her, words of affirmation, of love, of reassurance, and not a word of the judgement or anger she is constantly expecting to hear.
She doesn’t trust me yet, but I’m fine with that. I don’t expect her to.
God knows I don’t always trust that life, or people, or things can be good, either, and He’s been patient with me through many spiritual tantrums.
So by His grace I’ll be patient with her… and keep working to earn her trust.
After a long time, she finally relaxes and leans against me. Her angry sobs settle into heartbroken weeping as she tells me about the things that have been cruelly taken from her.
She leans her head on my chest where my aching heart beats inside, and there’s a rich kind of joy in place of the emptiness, because as I cradle this brokenness close, I realize I feel perfectly complete.
So many people only see the angry outbursts – but they’re not foreign to me. I hear the crying, wounded heart inside, and I get how the deep pain becomes anger that life has hurt so much, and if all that emotion has nowhere to go, these tantrums will be the result.
Anger at pain, as an emotion, isn’t wrong. It’s what we do with it. For this precious girl, she sometimes needs a safe place to cry, to just let it out…
For myself, ministering to her wounds is the best way to pour out my own emotions and mend my own broken places.
I never really understood how healing could come through giving. But it’s a concept meant to be lived, not taught, for true understanding to come.
No amount of self care can ever heal a heart the way caring for others will.
Maybe, instead of fighting our pain to mend the brokenness, we will be healed by embracing it, holding it close, weeping together, and mending each other through it all.
Notes from My Heartsong 