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Haphazardly scattered all over my bedroom dresser and more carefully positioned throughout my office prayer space are broken shells of every shape and size. Small and blue-grey, large and sun-bleached, twisting, turning, spiraling in that gorgeous and mysterious way that seashells do. Although I have one perfect channeled whelk shell that I purchased in Cape May, N.J., years ago, my prized possessions are my broken shells, because, as far as I’m concerned, they are far more beautiful than the ones that are perfectly intact and so lovely on the outside.
The brokenness lets you see inside, where you discover the magnificent soft turns typically hidden by the outer shell. I think I’m so taken with these shell fragments because they remind me of people, broken but beautiful. Even those people who look physically perfect on the outside harbor an intricate beauty and brokenness somewhere on the inside. It’s just a factor of our humanity. We don’t get through this life whole and intact; we are meant to be broken open, to expose and embrace our inner beauty.
That’s not always easy. I have a hard time looking at myself with the same gentle eyes I use to look at my collection of scarred and shattered shells. I understand in theory that “I am wonderfully made,” as Psalm 139 tells us, but translating that into an attitude that guides my daily life is a challenge. In my mind’s eye, I see only the imperfections. I would be wonderfully made, if only (fill in the blank). I may believe God has an unconditional love for everyone else on the planet, but believing that about myself is, well, unbelievable.
And it seems I’m not alone. When I go out and give talks and retreats centered on this topic, I can see the quiet nodding from people in the audience and sometimes a flash of recognition, an Aha! moment, as if to say, “Wait, you mean I’m not the only one who feels this way?” Afterwards, when we have a chance for discussion, deep and intimate feelings often come spilling out, sometimes with tears, other times with an obvious sense of relief that this brokenness does not mean that any one of us is beyond repair, beyond redemption, beyond God’s constant reach. It doesn’t matter if I’m speaking to alumni at Fordham University or moms at a parish brunch or Catholic business professionals at a formal dinner.
“Our brokenness is truly ours. Nobody else’s. Our brokenness is as unique as our chosenness and our blessedness,” writes famed theologian Henri Nouwen in his book “Life of the Beloved.” “…as fearsome as it may sound, as the Beloved ones, we are called to claim our unique brokenness, just as we have to claim our unique chosenness and our unique blessedness.”
Can we begin to see our brokenness as a blessing rather than a curse, a beauty mark rather than a scar? It can happen only when we fully place ourselves in God’s hands and accept once and for all that we are indeed wonderfully made, even with—or maybe because of— our flaws and weaknesses, our wrinkles and quirks, our sins and struggles.
God doesn’t love us only after we are “fixed.” God loves us into being and loves us through our imperfections, patiently waiting for us to climb on board and revel in that gift. Unfortunately we are too often caught up in the mirage of wholeness, the mistaken belief that a perfect outer shell will make us more lovable.
We are all shattered in one way or another. We are all incomplete, missing pieces here and there. But we are all beautiful. In fact, we are more beautiful because of it. Who wants polished perfection that belies the truth of what’s inside when you can have the raw power of beauty that’s broken because it has lived and loved and lost and carried on in spite of it all? Be broken and be beautiful.
Mary DeTurris Poust is a retreat leader, public speaker and author of six books on Catholic spirituality. Visit her at at: www.notstrictlyspiritual.com.
