When we are broken...

As Good Friday draws near, I want to share one of my own, small reflections on suffering and one way I think God wants to reach out to us in it.

 

Just over two years ago, during my pregnancy with Benedict, I struggled with my health – migraines, morning sickness, vision problems, and feelings of low blood sugar. It was very hard to get through each day.
 

During Benedict's pregnancy, I found myself drawn to the song “What Love Really Means”, by JJ Heller:

 

“Who will love me for me?

Not for what I have done or what I will become?

Who will love me for me?

'Cause nobody has shown me what love, what love really means.”

 

I would sing this song to my unborn child with a promise. I would love this child, with all my heart, for whoever he or she was. I already did.

 

Then, one day at Mass, someone made an unkind comment to me after discovering I was pregnant. I am not unaccustomed to such remarks, but this one proved to be too much for me to simply brush off. A short time later, I left the main church area to stand in the back, and to wipe away my tears.

 

As I stood there, I thought about how I felt broken. So very, very broken.

 

And as I looked up at the myriad people leaving church – people young, old, some looking sad themselves, some walking with assistance, some I knew had experienced terrible loss – I felt like God spoke to my heart.

 

“So many of my children are broken.”

 

Yes, so many are. And yet, “broken” is not how God ultimately desires us to be.

That morning, God opened my heart in a new way to other people also struggling, and finding themselves so weak in the face of life's challenges. I wondered why God was speaking this to my heart, but I had a sense that if I could just wait on Him, someday I would have a better understanding. For the moment, I simply thanked God for helping me see I was not alone, for giving me compassion toward those around me, and for helping me see He does view us as His children. He holds us in His hand, and desires to transform our weakness with His compassion, mercy, and love (2Cor 12:9-10). It was the Christmas season, and it seemed especially fitting that God had chosen to come as an infant in order to save us, His small and helpless children.

A short time later, my understanding of brokenness deepened. We learned in early January, at 21 weeks gestation, that Benedict had died. The next morning, my husband and I left early for the hospital to deliver him. What I had been told would be a short process took an entire day, and was one of my most painful labors. While I laid there, still in shock at what was happening, and listening to nurses who for some reason felt the need to come in with frequent reminders that “there wouldn't be a happy ending” to this delivery, I found my gaze drawn to the crucifix on the wall – to Jesus, with His arms outstretched, His hands and feet nailed, his body bloodied and poured out for us.

 

“Father, not my will, but Thine be done.” (Luke 22:42)

 

“And when you are older, you will go where you do not want to go and do what you do not want to do.”(This is how I remembered John 21:18-19.)

 

Jesus spoke to me, through His image on the wall, and through those verses in my head, that I was not alone. He walked with me, with my husband, with our children.

 

However, our Lord's presence was most apparent at Benedict's delivery.

 

God was in the room as we held our very tiny, but very perfect son, and so was joy. I could never have imagined that possible, but there was joy because there was life. Not life that we would get to enjoy here on earth, but certainly life that we will be reunited with in heaven.

 

Just as my husband and I found joy in that delivery room, Jesus wants us to remember that after Good Friday comes Easter. After Jesus' death comes the resurrection.

 

None of us walks alone. And for each of us there is hope, even -- perhaps especially -- in our brokenness.