Have you ever experienced something so painful that you wanted to shut down and never turn back on? Have you ever felt so crushed that, at least for the moment, you couldn’t imagine ever getting back up? For me, in between the screams that the spasms triggered, the only words I could muster were, “God, help me! God, help me! God, help me!”
I find joy in my brokenness – in my chronic illness, in my disability, in my pain – because it becomes a bridge that connects my story to another person's story. Usually, my cane provides an opportunity to connect with a stranger and show them compassion in a way that I simply could not have done otherwise.
I watch, Father, as my heart struggles to know what to do, how to do it, and how to bring comfort where there is so much pain.
Writing about pain is both necessary and difficult. Pain is eased by being moved and writing a poem about pain gets it moving. In Andrea Potos’ poem, we don’t know what her wounds are – only that the cello is speaking to those hurting places, encouraging them to become something beautiful.
