Brokenness

Brokenness may wear many masks.

Designer clothes. Stilettos. Carefully applied eye shadow. One hundred thousand dollar car. Hiring a divorce lawyer for the third time. Plush couches. White picket fence. Unexpected pregnancy. Sleeping pills.

Or.

Hovels made from bricks, mud, palm leaves, and tarps; too small to stand up straight. Girls only fourteen becoming brides, mothers. Alcohol. Beatings. Hungry bellies. Black veils. Angry shouting. Neighboring villages that will not speak to each other; one is Hindu, the other Muslim.

But regardless of income, skin color, nationality—brokenness and wounding are the same. The disparaging words of a neighbor still hurt. Alcoholism destroys lives. People are insecure, fearful, aching. Hearts need to be healed, to forgive. Whether I’m talking to a woman on the dirt floor of a slum or thinking back to conversations with those in the lap of suburban luxury, I’m finding that every human heart cries for the same thing, whether they realize what they are crying for or not, and none of us will be satisfied until we find it.