Thank you to Susanne Landgrebe for her thoughtful insights in today’s blog!
“Beauty in brokenness….we resist pain, suffering, and sorrow, yet these things are unavoidable to our humanness. Often times, pain is the gate to a new beginning. We want to put the pieces back together, after “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,” pretending as if nothing happened, and trying to pull things back to equilibrium. Instead of resisting pain, or any “negative feeling,” we can embrace it. Instead of running from brokenness, we could grow in it. Pain has the potential to help us more than we ever dreamed possible. Remember transition, the time when the baby is moving through the birth canal, the 15 minutes of unbearable pain and darkness? Afterwards, the beautiful child is born, the pain is forgotten, the life is changed forever.
We can find the beauty in our brokenness. Remember, emotional pain and brokenness is a gate. And there are at least two paths after the gate….and we get to choose.”
All of this greatly resonates greatly with me and makes me think of Isaiah 61 with the promise of a crown of beauty instead of ashes. On a lighter note, that whole forgetting the pain of labor is a myth-I remember it quite well after all these years and am thankful not to have to experience it again (although it was way more than worth it for the beautiful blessings it led to!!!) Cindy
Cindy, thanks for sharing your thoughts! Beauty instead of ashes…what a powerful reminder of God’s grace in and through suffering. I’ll have to defer to you ladies on the subject of childbirth. I experienced four childbirths and sailed through each of them. I don’t even remember the pain. :-). BT
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