to look over decisions that we’ve made, roads we have taken, choices we have labored over only to find that they weren’t the right decisions, were the wrong turns and were bad choices. But it is a constant in our lives. Not every crossroad we come to will have an outcome that is favorable. Sometimes, the results can be downright devastating.
If the only person such things effected was ourselves, it wouldn’t, I suppose, matter, quite so much. But our decisions, our outbursts, our tantrums, our misdirects … they, like a long, intricate line of dominoes, fall, one against another, starting a chain reaction that can last for years and through multiple lifetimes. Purity and innocence can be taken away so quickly that it would seem as though they never existed.
I have a wealth of understanding on making mistakes and living with them; learning from them. Some of my mistakes have hurt no one but myself, others have touched the people I love the most, causing pain that was never intended, hurt that, though time has surely layered with a cushion, can never, ever, be completely erased.
I understand pain and insecurity. I have known joy and heartache with equal measure. I have lain, curled in a ball while sobs wracked my body to the point that I feared my bones would break and didn’t care if they did. I have known despair and felt the icy fingers of death claw at my mind. I have thought long and hard about how easy it would be to simply drift away into nothingness where life could no longer kick me senseless.
It is because of these things that I have more understanding than I wish to, that I stand now, with my head up and my spirit intact. Life did not break me. It bent me, at times nearly beyond redemption, but it did not break me. I look around and see others that have been bruised and bent themselves. They weren’t broken either, but none of us came out of the fire unscathed. None of us came away from it all whole, but full of holes that left room for the pain and suffering of others to fill.
Because of my broken road, I have found compassion, I have found empathy and I have found beauty that is so stunning that, at times, it nearly breaks my heart. And along the path strewn with shards of brokenness, I have found others, stumbling along trying to find their way. And through discouragement, faith and determination, I was encouraged. We are all, in one way or another, broken and simply knowing that makes me feel less alone.
Matthew 12:20 ~ A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench
A Photographer's Heart 