Patched Sails and Prayers: A Note for the Broken
You told me once that you still prayed for every girl you ever loved, but you ached when you said it.
A splintered soul, water logged with hurt and lost at sea, grasping for pieces of people who were no longer yours.
Lost from you, maybe, because you did not love them well enough.
Remember that a ship with torn sails still floats- but it will never live up to its potential. You did not deserve to have your sails ripped by hands entrusted by God to love you. Your brokenness is not your fault. Nevertheless, any sailors who drown on your watch as a consequence are your responsibility. You will carry the burden of their innocence and pain in your hull until eventually it is so heavy you sink from it too.
Choose to do the tedious work so you can heal. It is the only way to break the broken cycle. Examine the tears in your soul carefully. Lower your sails and sit with them, finger the tattered pieces and prepare your sturdiest needle. Use love as your thread, it is strong enough to hold together even your most jagged edges. The acceptance and awareness will sting and burn as the needle makes its way in and out. The empathy and forgiveness will pull and ache. Eventually though you will tug the final stitch through the soft folds of yourself one last time and pull tight a knot of grace. Then you will heal, and like the worn paint on your bow, your pain will fade in the sunshine.
You worry that stitches in your soul will make you less than. They won’t and they never will.
A patched sail catches wind just as well as one that has never weathered a storm.
There is nothing so broken it cannot be fixed, even you.
I know you desperately want to love well and it is not your fault you don’t know how. Your love is a messy pile of knotted ropes below deck because that is all you have ever known. How can you begin to untangle them when you are barely afloat? Drop anchor for a while and feel the sea of love holding you. You don’t have to cause hurt when you are hurting. You can hurt and love and heal all at once.
You feel as though your soul is splintered but just as there is thread to mend sails, there is sandpaper to smooth rough decks. You only have to drop to your knees and do the hard work. Haul up the heavy ropes, untangle their knots, and coil them neatly on deck. Put in the faith and sweat and when you hoist your sails they will catch all your prayers and you will move forward.
You will love well enough.
Do it all with love.
