we bend, we break, we fall in love
It’s not that God loves broken people more than those who imagine themselves to be whole – it’s simply that they KNOW they are loved. They dare to believe it…and through such trust, a new wholeness emerges from yesterday’s broken pieces.
– Sheila Walsh
God Loves Broken People
Who Am I?
*Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!
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*Dietrich Bonhöffer, a young theologian of great promise, was martyred by the Nazis for his participation in a plot against the life of Adolf Hitler.
You may say, “I feel your pain,” but you cannot.
You can only know your own, and imagine another’s.
But God knows your sufferings, for God is in you.
You may feel that your cries go unheard into the darkness,
but God hears, allows your cries into her heart of hearts.
They echo in the mind of God day and night.
And God goes about God’s passionate work: to deliver,
to set us free from oppression, from fear, from death,
from all that holds back our love from its freedom.
No matter your struggles, your gifts, your hopes,
there is this great energy of deliverance
moving in this world, already at work to set you free,
you and all who hope, who suffer, who are oppressed,
who long for freedom, for peace,
for the arms of the One who Hears.
And you, what burning bush have you seen?
What work are you doing, what energy are you following?
How have you taken up your cross and followed
the One who knows our pain,
the one who hears,
the One who delivers?
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
life: acoustic & amplified 