Wishful Thinking

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July 15, 2009, 10:37 am » Abbie Smith

What if every person we crossed paths with today had some level of brokenness? And what if that brokenness was the window to seeing what is whole?
The man at the counter.
The woman at the gas station.
The driver you flicked-off on en route to work.
The waiter at the Mexican restaurant.
The pregnant lady at the pool.
The actor.
The trucker.
The doctor.
The pastor.
The student.
The mom.
The boy laughing.
The woman crying.
The man praying.
The child.
They’re just like the rest of us; we’re just like the rest of them.
Broken.
It comes with the package of a beating heart and breathing lung. And whether manifested through a broken-heart, body, spirit, or mind, brokenness is a part of being.

And yet we resist it. We treat it like a cancer, like a part of us that’s wrong and needs to be defeated, or as an obstacle preventing our wholeness. Every once in awhile you'll come across a person willing to work with their brokenness, versus fighting it, but they’re few and far between, and usually the quieted voices of culture. I wish we believed every person we crossed paths with today had some level of brokenness. And that in that brokenness was the window to seeing what is whole.
Those are my two pennies for the wishing well today.

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Comments

Thu, 07/23/2009 - 02:16 — jan

amazing. if i could write, which i can't, these would be my words exactly. i tried this today BEFORE i read this - i was opened up and the response I got upon being open was amazing - people actually acted differently, there was a true response to the openness - truly a "God" thing, truly, seriously amazingly exciting. ;D thanks for putting my thoughts into words Abbie.... keep writing girl

Mon, 08/10/2009 - 03:40 — Tim Hansen

What would my relationship with God be like if I were the only person on the planet?

What if I were to really buy into the idea that the Creator of the Universe has always had a personal relationship with me, That he "knew me in my mother's womb" and "counted the hairs on my head" whether I even knew it, believed it truly or not, or or even cared, or even wanted it?

Well, now that I do know it and want it, doesn't the exact same relationship hold true for everyone else on the planet? So I'm guessing then that I have a pretty big responsibility towards whomever I come in contact with during the day, considering that God has the same relationship with them that he does with me, right?

So, whether it's the 28 second "relationship" with the Nigerian across the counter at the Quick Trip, or the 28 year "relationship" with my wife, God has placed these people in front of me for a reason.

My job is to behave toward them like God would: With patience and love, forgiveness, tolerance and compassion etc.... If I look at it this way, I can see their brokenness for what it is: Nothing more than my brokenness, my "humanity" reflected back at me. When that happens I get a sense of what Spirituality really is.

Mon, 08/10/2009 - 03:42 — Tim Hansen

“Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide a grin.”