Being broken … being open

Someone recently described her angst like this: “I feel like ‘Pig Pen’ in Charlie Brown, but the dirt pile around me is so much bigger.”

What if all the consequences, all the aftereffects of our suffering were displayed like that? What if the suspicion, the fear, the anger, the self-hatred took visual form and danced around our feet as we walked along?

Oh, I would be so embarrassed (forgetting that virtually every other person would have their own piles dancing around them!)! I would think, perhaps even more than I do now, that I was ruined forever. After all, I’ve been lugging these effects around for decades. I may be able to peel off bits and pieces of many of them, but they are still here, still popping up now and then, still intruding on my present life.

So, I turn to God (again), and God responds (again), but this time with a slightly different tone…

“Be broken, O you peoples, and be broken in pieces.” (Isaiah 8:9)

It is a message I am used to hearing. It reminds me not to look to myself — I don’t have the strength nor the wisdom to keep healing, keep growing. I need only be open, and the wonderful thing about being broken is that it results in hundreds of openings all around my body, little crevices here, and big gashes over there. All these openings afford God a way in.

I like this image of Pig Pen. For sure, it’s my brokenness dancing around at my feet. But, it is also hundreds of openings to God.

Reflection

How does seeing your “dirt pile” as openings for God alter your view of yourself and your ability to receive God?

Prayer

God, my dirt pile is massive sometimes. I wonder if You can even see me for its size, its soot obscuring the air around me. Please help me understand You see this as opportunity, a way for me to hear You, see You, receive You much more than if I were whole. Come, Lord, seep into me. Find my openings. I want You.