Ben Wilson, LPC

--I've met with a brave group of women over the last 10 weeks. We've been reading Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. Our final assignment was to write a love letter to our broken and beautiful world. It was a deeply meaningful evening sharing them with one another after a celebratory comfort food extravaganza.--

As I sit here days after giving Thanks for so much in my life, there is truly an ache in my heart. Where does this ache come from? What is broken in my world that fuels this ache? How am I broken? Am I open to the brokenness? Do I fight the brokenness? Is that still yet part of my brokenness, that I fight the brokenness? I spent untold years fighting the brokenness that would crash into me with such force that I could not fight it anymore. I became a broken, wounded, aching heap on the floor those many years ago. But today feels so familiar, so like those days of dark and raw. But the disconnect today is there is no big event, no blowup, no…yet I still feel broken and disconnected. I have so much in my life to be thankful for…a husband and lover who cherishes me beyond what I can imagine; a warm and cozy home; a job that provides an ability to live and give; children that I delight in and that love me; friends that do much more than endure me. Yet the ache remains. The distance remains. I feel distant from my world. I feel distant from my Hope. I feel distant from my heart. I feel distant from my Love, my Savior. 

As I look toward the day of birth of my Savior, I do hope and I do anticipate. Yet, the ache still remains, even in the midst of the beauty of His Hope.

I was connecting with the Broken world as I began this letter. As I finish this letter to the Broken and Beautiful world that surrounds me, You remind me in a few very tangible ways of Beauty and Hope. Last night, writing about a woman’s design to nurture, about my design to nurture, you reminded me just how beautiful and miraculous – how beautimous – this world is in the crinkled noses, gooey messes, ten-fingers-and-ten-toes miracles that issue forth from our bodies. Yes, there is still brokenness at times when the miracle gets disrupted by a life ended prematurely. But oh, the absolute wonder of life when it happens. The absolute amazement that life still comes forth, even in the darkness that so often envelops. And when it does, Your Life and Hope begins to surface again in me.

This morning you reminded me again of this Hope. Precious Piper Jo was born early this morning to a family that has become nourishment to my soul. You have knit us together with a bond that is strangely familiar, as I have tasted this sweetness before. You have brought forth life not only through the birth of a ten-fingers-and-ten-toes miracle, you have brought forth life from the depths of my soul where I thought the door of darkness had been slammed shut and locked up tight. You are truly the Light, the Hope, the Beauty of this world as you open that door in me that brings LIFE.

your precious daughter who is ever grateful,

Ann