It’s Friday night and this week closes with the weight of heavy sorrow on my heart for many I love who are feeling the immensity of deep loss.
So much broken.
You see, I know this deep groaning…. this midnight of the soul. This place of utter destruction.
This holy space requires a special kind of love from others. A bravery that is okay with someone not being okay. A courage that is not afraid to sit in the dark with a broken heart.
I wrote this poem many months ago…. I pray it helps others learn to sit in the uncomfortableness of other’s broken spaces.
To just be with and love the one who grieves without trying to fix them or peppering them with cliches or platitudes.
Yes, it is true that God is sovereign. Yes, it is true that we know the truth that He has overcome the world. But, just “knowing” these truths does not fix what is broken now, and it does not make our pain magically go away.
Pain must be felt. Pain must be honored.
We live in a broken world and because of this fact, suffering and pain WILL be a part of your story if it is not already. It is the common thread of humanity. It is WHY Jesus came, the man of all sorrows, and it is why he suffered for us… He suffers “with” us.
We live in this middle mess. The middle of the broken, between the Garden of Eden, where humanity fell, and the new coming Restored Garden where ALL things will be made New!! (Rev 22).
In between is this broken Garden where we temporarily reside, a world tainted with sin, tears and death and deep pain…yet a world held in the promise of something new.
We live in the Saturday of destruction,
while still believing in the Sunday of restoration.
Jesus knows these broken garden spaces better than anyone else. He agonized and sweat blood in a sacred garden, named Gethsemane, begging for God to pass the Cup of suffering from Him. He, more than anyone else, understands this sacred space of sorrow that must be honored.
He draws near to this sacred place.
It’s in this greatest sorrow where the sacred pathway to His heart becomes unearthed.
He sits with us. He is never afraid of our brokenness.
He wept with Mary, even while knowing He would raise Lazarus.
Let’s be a culture who is not afraid to Love Like Jesus in the Saturday garden….
To Just sit with.
SIT with your person in the wrongness of it all. Be willing to go there and be awkward.
Sit in the dark and ache with them for your Sunday promise.
Bear witness to this holy encounter of Psalm 34:18 in action
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit
INSIDE MY BROKEN GARDEN
A winter storm ravaged all that was seen
My garden no longer a page from a dream
Now a dark shadow that reflects her terrible death
A ravaged landscape void of her giggling breath
Can you see where there was once a blooming tree?
Now just A hole that once held her dancing feet
I Scream at the wind to bring my perfect blossom back
A flower growing one day, then stolen just like that!
Would you dare to Come Sit with me in this utter agony?
To just weep and wail together around this lost raptured tree
To still yourself and wait among the death and destruction
With no judgement or need or desire or expectation
It’s messy and rocky and gritty here
You’ll feel utterly lost, confused but just stay so near
This space filled with tears flooding over each cold stone
A stark wilderness that feels so terribly far from home
Only a hush as There are no words needed
No language is worthy, only a presence to be heeded
There’s no such answers that you could show
Only A with-ness that says “I know,”. ‘I know,” “I know”
This is where the deepest love is unearthed
In just a simple agreement Of all the terrible hurt
By Bearing witness to all the offensive pain
Allowing the space for lament that holds no shame
Come see a desert land that lies all around
Somehow this barren place becomes holy ground
To not be afraid of my soul’s deepest night
This darkness will reveal a new starlight
To come share in this painful bleeding
Is to mirror the agony and the desperate pleading
Together Pounding this bare torn up ground
Waiting for the warmth of spring to be found
The courage to sit in another’s crucifixion
Is To believe for a coming resurrection
This is how our eyes learn to truly see
Will you accept the honor to weep with me?
Look how truth cradles the fallen leaves
See, a promise warms the buried seeds
A gardener who catches every dying lily’s tear
He Records each poppy’s sorrow that reaches His ear
A heart breaks in all that is evil and wrong
And together we’ll wait for a cardinal’s new spring song
When now a winter wasteland is all that is seen
To look for the only one who can bloom and redeem
Together.
Inside.
My broken garden
A midnight hush and promise of Kingdom come.
The man of sorrows hung on the tree, “IT IS DONE.”
A broken garden tomb could not hold my spotless King
The roaring Lion busted through, bringing Eternal Spring.
Inside my eternal garden…..
A wildflower field of Living Hope
The snake’s deadly curse surely broke
The heart hole healed, tears are no more
There I will hold my Sweet Lily… on rainbows we will soar.
“
Poem by: Johanna Cannelongo
