"I'm broken, and it's beautiful..."

"Can someone just hold me?
Don't fix me,
don't try to change a thing.

Oh, someone just know me,
'cause underneath, I'm broken,
and it's beautiful..."

I love Kelly Clarkson's  "Broken and Beautiful."  It's the perfect musical keynote for this message. In fact, it was just the inspiration I'd been waiting for to write this post.

I grew up thinking that we start out as innocent babies -- pure and perfect. The goal, was to stay that way. That meant one of two things. Either you were born into perfect families, with parents who protected you from anything that would undermine that very vulnerable state of perfection. Or you were "good enough" to ward off anything that would break the fragile shell of innocence. Karmic bubble wrap.  Some got it, some didn't.  Broken was anything but beautiful.

By the time I was a young girl, I knew that I was irreparably broken - damaged goods. Innocence shattered. Purity violated. No matter how much healing took place, I would always be a broken someone.  At best, patched together with psychological crazy glue or spiritual baling twine.

Broken meant less desirable. Especially when you wanted so desperately to be seen as smart, sweet, kind, spiritually whole. Who'd choose broken, when they could have perfect?

When I turned eleven, my immediate family came into the study and practice of Christian Science. I loved church, Sunday School, reading the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and attending Adventure Unlimited functions. I wanted to belong. I wanted to be a puzzle piece that had found its place in the beautiful picture I'd been introduced to. But I was broken. They didn't know it. I did.

In my own eyes I was ugly. Yes, I had body dimorphic issues, and I thought that I was plain and awkward -- but the ugliness I was sure of, had nothing to do with my looks. It had everything to do with what I knew, that they did not. I knew what lay under the surface.  I knew that I had been shattered, and the there were ugly cracks in my heart.

The effort it took to hide those fissures was exhausting. I was never genuinely present in any relationship. I was hiding behind all the ways I had patched myself together. It took everything I had, to make sure that I was always showing my good side.  Always trying to deflect attention from my brokenness.

There are so many things I could share here. Suffice it to say that I spent decades disguising the still sharp edges of my shattered heart -- because a shattered heart was ugly. Broken things deserved to be discarded. If I gave the impression of wholeness, I might be kept on the shelf.

One day, I saw a photo like the one above - and below. It was of a broken ceramic bowl. It was illustrating a Japanese art form called, "kintsugi," which translates into "golden seams," or "golden repair." The broken bowl is given new life by filling the cracks with a mixture of resin and gold dust, making the bowl even more valuable - for the originality of its beauty. No two kitsugi bowls are ever the same.

When I discovered this cultural love for the broken bowl, I gave myself permission to wonder if, maybe, it wasn't my brokenness that actually made me beautiful.

Did the shattering experiences I'd endured as a child, make me more compassionate? Had the stress of circumstances broadened my perspective? Would I become a more understanding friend, because I had felt so afraid of being misunderstood? Could I value the brokenness in others, because I knew how desperately we all want to feel whole? Were the friendships I'd let fall and shatter, have even more beauty, once I poured the gold of honesty and humility into the wounds of misunderstanding and hurt.

Mother Teresa once said: :

"“May God break my heart so completely
that the whole world falls in."

Could it be that I had not been broken apart, but broken open? Open to a new and deeper understanding of our humanity as brothers and sisters in Christ?

This statement from Science and Health became a lifeline for me:

"Our disappointments and ceaseless woes
turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love,
then we begin to learn life in divine Science."

Could this really be true? Was it possible that my broken heart, my disappointed dreams, my woeful experiences were just the beginning of discovering what it meant to live spiritually -- and not an indication of a failed attempt at life? A failed life. One that I'd felt I had no control over to begin with - just a poorly dealt hand. Had those same disappointments really been a gift?

Elsewhere in Unity of Good, Eddy writes:

"Truth, in divine Science,
is the stepping-stone to
the understanding of God;
but the broken and contrite heart
soonest discerns this truth,
even as the helpless sick
are soonest healed by it."

Perhaps, I wondered, I was even more beautiful because of my brokenness? Perhaps I could begin to accept that every broken promise, every shattered trust, every sharp edge on the fragmented shards of my life, was a place to pour in the gold of compassion, humility, honesty, hope -- grace. For these were the drams of gold that were continuously being separated from the dross - through those experiences in the fiery furnace of ceaseless woe and disappointment.

God's love had never left me. I was not a discardable spiritual failure, but a beautiful creation in His loving, tender hands. Nothing that I had experienced, had ever touched the purity of the clay.

I was not something to be fixed, but someone to be loved.  Something to be held tenderly. Someone to be valued for the seams of gold, that ran like veins of beauty and compassion, through my life. We all are.

offered with Love,

Kate

"all I remembered..."

"and all I remembered,
was your back..."

I don't actually know if I can clearly say what is in my heart today -- but I will try. The first time I heard Kelly Clarkson's song,  "Piece by Piece," I thought that perhaps my tears were coming up from a well so deep, it was fathomless. It spoke to such profound feelings of abandonment.

It always reminded me of the story of Hagar in the Bible. Hagar is the captured slave of Sarah, Abraham's wife. She serves Sarah faithfully. When Sarah is unable to produce an heir for Abraham, Sarah give Hagar to her husband. Hagar becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, Ishmael.

Years later, Sarah, herself, becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac.. Her son, is now Abraham's second son. When she becomes concerned about Isaac sharing his birthright with Ishmael, she asks Abraham to cast Hagar out of their community - with her son. Abraham asks God for guidance, and God tells him to do what Sarah has asked. Promising Abraham that He, God, will take care of Hagar and Ishmael.

Abraham takes Hagar and his first born son to the wilderness and leaves them there with a vessel of water. When the water runs out, Hagar is frightened and begs God to not let her see the death of her son. God hears the child's cry and water springs from a rock. Ishmael goes on to become the father of his own branch of Abraham's tree.

Whenever I read (or heard) that story, I always wept inside. Hagar had only been an obedient servant to her mistress. She had allowed herself to be given to Sarah's husband for the producing of an heir. For Sarah to cast her out, and for Abraham to abandon her - and his own son -- seemed cruel and heart-breaking to me.

That was, until quite recently. I was reading this story of Hagar again one morning.   I was so ready for the tears of empathy - for her plight  - that always came. When suddenly, something washed over me that was new and fresh. It was joy.

The story shifted into light. Hagar was a captured slave. She had served her mistress and her mistress' husband faithfully. One day, she and her son -- the patriarch's heir -- were given their freedom. Freedom. Not abandonment. Abraham didn't kick her out, and keep the boy back so that he could control his destiny. He emancipated Hagar. He let her take her son with her.

I got it. Neither of us had ever been abandoned. We had been freed. We were taken to the border of our lives -- the place where the slavery ended.  And although it seemed like a wilderness -- it was the place where we discovered our oneness with the One who would never leave us and would never break our hearts.

In that moment, my story changed. I had never been left behind, abandoned, or had someone turn their back on me. I was free. I was free to be taken up in the arms of Love. I was free to exercise my spiritual maturity. I was free to discover how much God cared for me - and why He had never left me. And would never leave me on my own.

I had read this story so many times. But in one moment, what had once been heart-breaking, was now healing, restorative -- redemptive.

I will leave this here. There are not enough words to say what is in my heart.


offered with Love,

Kate

"piece by piece..."

"Piece by piece
I fell far from the tree
I will never leave her
like you left me

And she will never have
to wonder her worth
Because unlike you
I'm going to put her first..."

I've been sitting here in a quiet daze having heard Stephanie Rice performing Kelly Clarkson's "Piece by Piece," during her blind audition for The Voice. A friend sent me this link -- I don't have to hear her story, to know it. It pours, like tears, from her voice. I know the taste of those tears.

The link shared, includes the entire audition. Stephanie's performance is at the very beginning, and ends at about 2 minutes in. I was so moved by it. And please don't miss Kelly Clarkson's own emotional performance of "Piece by Piece." I hope you will give both versions a listen.

That said, I'd like to go back to the song itself. It is one of the most honest songs I have ever heard. It hit a nerve so deep, that I discovered I was weeping before a tear had even fallen.

It is a song that lifts the veil on what many girls, who became moms to their own little girls, have lived. Me included.

We compensate. And sometimes, we over-compensate. We look at the lives of our daughters, through the lens of our own longing for love, support, encouragement, and affection. We marry men who will be the fathers "who will not leave."  The kind of father who will put a child's dreams, and needs, above his own.

When we find this kind of love and support for our children, we feel the deep wounds inside of ourselves begin to open, drain, and heal. The self-protective shell we have encased our own dreams in, begins to shatter, allowing new light to warm the dark and hidden places. We start to heal from the inside out. And because we know we have given our daughters what we needed most, we feel safe. We begin to breathe in a new way. And with this softer breath, there is peace. We have the space to heal.

I see this deep desire -- to give our children this kind of love and support -- in the lives of so many of the women in my life. I see it in myself.

I was thrice-abandoned as a child. Once, when he didn't come looking, once through neglect, and once by desertion. The details and circumstances are not important. What is important, is to know is that it never hardened my heart. I never stopped wanting to be the mother of daughters. I never stopped wanting to give those daughters the kind of love and support -- for their innocence, dreams, and successes -- that I never knew as a child.

Like so many of my friends, I never lost hope that someday my daughters would know the love and devotion of a good father. A man who would model kindness, unselfishness, respect, and integrity. A father who would not let them slip away. A father who would be present and attentive. A father who would delight in their accomplishments -- even when it required the sacrifice of his own dreams.

My daughters and I have been blessed.  And I have been blessed to be surrounded by women who have raised daughters -- alone, or with partners -- who know they are loved, supported, believed in, and adored.  These are women of courage and dignity.

God has turned our mourning into dancing. Not all of us have married. Some of us have raised our daughters in a home with two moms. But we have made sure that our daughters know that nothing will ever deprive them of their right to be respected. They know that are worthy of being loved, supported, celebrated, and heard.

I am not really sure what the "message" of this post is. I only know that it couldn't sit in my heart by itself tonight. Thank you Stephanie Rice for your powerful, and deeply moving, performance. Thank you Kelly Clarkson for writing this most honest of songs. Thank you to each of my sisters and friends who have understood my need to support my daughters unconditionally, and have encouraged me when others have told me that I try too hard, or do too much.

For all of my friends who - as girls and young women - knew the love, attention, and support of a good father, I am so grateful for the example your relationship with your dad - that you held out to me. I see the look on my daughters' faces when they know that they -- and their dreams -- come first, and I know that every sacrifice has been worth it.

I am so grateful to be a mom. I am grateful for the example of true manhood I have witnessed in so many good men. I am deeply grateful for the models of true fatherhood that our daughters have experienced. In every way, I am just so grateful. Piece by piece, I have been restored.

Here is the chorus from Kelly Clarkson's beautiful "Piece by Piece:

"Piece by piece, he restored my faith
That a man can be kind and a father could, stay

Piece by piece I fell far from the tree
I will never leave her like you left me.

And she will never have to wonder her worth
Because unlike you
I’m going to put her first
and you know, He’ll never walk away,
He’ll never break her heart
He’ll take care of things, he’ll love her
Piece by piece, he restored my faith
That a man can be kind
and that a father would stay.

Piece by piece
Piece by piece..."  

Piece by piece we are building a new world view of what it means to be faithful -- not just to a person, but to a family. Piece by piece we are restoring trust, defining integrity. Piece by piece, family by family. I am grateful.


offered with Love,

Kate

"My life would suck without You..."

"...'Cause we belong together now, yeah
Forever united here somehow, yeah
You've got all of me
And honestly,
My life would suck without you..."
-     Kelly Clarkson

It was one of those amazingly gorgeous October Saturdays.  The sky was as blue as a robin's egg and the leaves were almost irridescent with color, and incandescent with light.  We were all sitting on folding spectator chairs in a clearing surrounded by cornfields, watching hundreds of children competing in the Belleville Fall Invitational Soccer tournament.  But each of us, had eyes only for "our girls."

The setting was really quite surreal. Mud-soaked soccer fields packed with young athletes dressed in primary colored uniforms.  They were miniature warriors in shin-guards and matching long socks, the scent of drying cornhusks wafting across us on a cool breeze, and the sound of...well, actually, pop music blaring from speakers set up throughout the sports complex.   But I was sitting with Vickie and her husband, Josh, so it was all good.  With them, everything takes on a new lightness...a joy...which provided just the right environment for listening to these songs with "new ears."

Vickie's daughter, Jordan, is one of the goalies on Emma and Clara's team and I love to sit next to her as we watch our girls fly from back and forth across the field.  Vickie makes me laugh...hard.  She is one of the funniest women I have ever met.  She has a GREAT laugh and a wonderful way of looking at the world.   Her laughter diffuses the competitive tension of watching our daughters throw their all, and everything, into each second of every single moment of those 30 minute halves.  I think I'd leave those games trembling from the sheer stress of watching even just one game that goes into overtimes and shootouts, much less two...if it weren't for Vickie's light-hearted good humor.

When Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" came on over the loudspeakers, my first thought was, "oh my gosh, how inappropriate, and what an imposition!"  But as readers of this blog know, I am all about reclaiming lyrics for God.  So I just sat with this song for a while waiting for God to show me how he was truly the only cause and creator of everything...even that song.   And you know...He did (not for all of the lyrics in this song...but the chorus is all His now...for me). I realized, that in that moment, my life did not suck at all.  It was a perfectly wonderful moment.  I was sitting in the sunshine with my older daughter (who had just returned from South Africa) on one side and a friend who made me laugh on the other, watching our twins do what they love most.  Does it get any better? 

But I had to admit that it was this suggestion of life's suckiness, just what had been screaming at me for the entire drive to Belleville.  I had been wallowing in the murcky waters of:  It sucked that Jeff had to be in Boston instead of on the soccer field coaching the girls...something he loved doing.  It sucked that the girls had four hours between games and had had to come back and forth (an hour each way) twice in one day.  And on and on the suggestions spewed themselves all over my gorgeous fall day, like spilled coffee on a gorgeous watercolor painting.

That was when I started to love this Kelly Clarkson song.  I happily realized, sitting there in the heavenly space of Vickie's laughter, Josh's all-around-good-guy-ness, Chris's laid-back good humor, and my daughter's company, that even though I missed my husband...alot, and I was still pretty doggone far from being, or having a life that was, humanly perfect, the only thing my life would really suck without, was (and is) God.  And since I never, ever, think that His, God's, absence is a possibility, my prospects for a pretty sweet life are golden.  In that moment, I was as sure of His presence in my life, as I was sure of my love for my daughters.  In fact it is my love for my daughters that is always one of the most sure and irrefutable signs of Her, God's, presence in my life...and as my life. More than any other one thing I have ever known.  And I know it in the deepest and most true part of my being.

Yes, but that was easy.  God's presence as Motherhood is so intrinsic to how I see my own life actually being the moment by moment expression of divinity as humanity.  But Saturday,  it was  remembering God's presence as Father that really broke the spell of human suck-iness. Mary Baker Eddy says that:

"As our ideas of Deity become more spiritual, we express them by objects more beautiful. ... Thus it is that our ideas of divinity form our models of humanity."

This statement has helped me realize that it is my concept of God as Father, that has most transformed the way I see myself as a daughter, a woman, a wife, a mother, a friend, a global neighbor.

As a child I attributed every "I can't", "I will never be...", "I am just not worthy of..." as truth, all because I didn't have "my own" father in my life. I lived in an almost, but never quite, fairytale space where I had a wonderful mother who loved me and a stepfather who took good care of me, but I would never really be all I could be...a special someone, a princess, a prized daughter, a successful woman...because my birthfather had chosen to disengage from my life when I was just a little girl. I would always be a step-something, second best, tolerable, the one to be "okay with" having around, but never the precious one, the first choice, the beloved. Not that my dad (my stepdad) treated me that way...I just always thought it was the way it must have been for him, in light of all I'd seen about step-parents in Disney movies, which I now know to be completely untrue. I am a step-parent myself today, and I love all of our children equally. And my husband has taught me, through his love and devotion to my children, that love knows no biological hierarchy, is not validated by time, and cannot be interrupted by distance or strengthened by proximity.

But this is a hard won perspective, as a child and young woman, I harbored fantasies in which a white-night father figure would swoop in and tell me I actually was his princess (it never mattered to me that there were a million other princesses whose fathers were their kings, I just wanted to be somebody's princess) and he had a kingdom waiting for me to feel special in.    "If only..." plagued my sense of myself...my strengths, my opportunitites and my options for many years. 

It wasn't until I was in my late thirties that I discovered,  that I did, in fact, have a wonderful, attentive, caring, affectionate, adoring Father who was real, knowable, present, and involved in my life.  God.  God became for me, what He had always been...my one and only Father.  My real daddy.  My Abba.  My papa.  My King.

So last Saturday,  as I sat there in the sweetness of laughter, friendship, sunshine and motherhood, all of this flooded my heart and I couldn't help but sing along, "My life would suck without You!!!"

And it would. 

Without my Father, God, I would not have the confidence to try new things without fear of failing.  That would suck. 

Without Him I would not have been able to survive my daughter traveling around the world to South Africa, to live for three years, with no promise of her ever returning.

Without Him I would not be able to sleep peacefully on those nights when Emma and Clara are not upstairs in their beds, but four miles away in their beds at their dad's house.

Without Him I would never be able to do what I love...taking calls or appointments from patients and clients seeking spiritual care...with confidence in His ability, not mine to bring them answers, healing, comfort, and peace.  I am only there to remind them of His presence in their lives too.

Without Him I would never be able to sit on the sidelines watching my daughters compete in a contact sport...without fear.

Without Him I would never have been able to watch campers go on three-day overnights where they would climb 14,000 foot mountains, raft raging rivers, mountain bike across high country ridges, and ride horses above tree-line...and not experience one moment of worry or concern.

Without Him, I would not feel at peace with my husband, my best friend, living and working in a distant city...at peace only because we know  that it was God who "called him according to His purpose" in serving our church whose stated mission is "to reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."

Without You, dear Father, I would not be able to get up each morning and face a brand new day trusting in your love for your children, your forgiveness when we falter, your mercy when we fall, your tenderness in lifting us up, and often, your willingness to carry us in your strong arms.

And these are just the first few things that flew out of my fingers, across the keyboard and onto the screen within moments...and I know that there are an infinite number of ways that my life is peaceful, blessed, satisfied, joyful, trust-filled because of You.

Without you...my life would suck.  I am so grateful I never have to live my life without You.  I know I have a Father who will never leave me.  I have a Father who, in the santuary of our relationship, has eyes only for me.  We all do. We are all precious in His sight.

Thank you Papa.

your daughter...your princess,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Hollister Thomas 2009]