Christianne Squires writes about attending a celebratory weekend with other spiritual directors. It’s theme – “Bless the Broken Road” – celebrating and gathering around a theme of vulnerability!
She shares one participant’s story of having sat down in the middle of a stretch of her own broken road that lasted two and a half years. She sat down, she said, and began to notice the wildflowers.
Squires asked herself, “What are the wildflowers along the path of my broken road? Where have I found unexpected beauty in the broken places? What sprang up with color through the cracks in the midst of an otherwise barren place?”
As she reflected on the “wildflowers” of her own stretch of broken road, she realized one of the dearest wildflowers that she’d encountered had been the wildflower of soul friends — friends with whom she ”could share the journey, who could hear and hold my heart, who were simply with me in it.”
She continued, “Another wildflower that I’ve found along my broken road is the presence of God. It is in the broken places that I learned about God’s compassion for me, about God’s seeing of me, about God’s simply being with me: no agenda, no hurry, and often no words.
There’s such a grace in being with another who doesn’t require words when all you have are tears, isn’t there? It’s like all the pressure dissipates, like a deep breath escaping through your lips from a place in the center of your being, and you can just rest.
When we’re in a stretch of broken road, rest is such a gentle gift.”
Christianne reminds us that as we look upon the landscape of our own twisting and winding journey that has no doubt included its share of brokenness, too, there are wildflowers of beauty that may catch our attention. “Where has unexpected beauty been found in your barren lands?”