Lying Cold on the Wet Pavement

We’re all broken
Hurting people 
with bodies snapped like twigs 
 
For me, it’s my legs 
They are broken and
I’m lying cold on the wet pavement
in the middle of the road
Hoping to God that someone will come and carry me 
 
I hear footsteps behind me
And a voice, easy and kind,
Saying to me, “I think I can help you.”
The pavement crunches as he sits behind me.
 
He talks to me
About life and love 
Hopes and dreams 
He is curious about me
He asks me questions 
He keeps talking 
He jokes with me 
He remarks on the weather
He asks me if I enjoy traveling  
He keeps talking 
 
All the while 
I’m lying cold on the wet pavement 
In the middle of the road
Dying for this man to stop talking and carry me
 
Tears drip backwards down my temples into my ears
My heart races and my blood boils 
My pulse pounds in my neck
I want him to swallow his tongue and choke on it
I finally scream: “Stop talking, damnit!” 
 
He stops.  
 
I feel a little remorse
but not enough to stop me from demanding: 
“Just shut up and carry me!” 
 
I hear him sigh 
The pavement crunches again as he stands up 
He walks in front of me. 
My heart stops. 
 
Both his arms are broken. 
 
“I'm sorry,” he said,
Tears dripping down his cheek
“I can't.” 
He walks away, and I begin to cry. 

I had this vision in my head as I wrestled through severe disappointment with a person who tried to help me, but failed. They just couldn’t be what I needed, and I was so angry — until I recognized where their brokenness was.

Brene Brown’s question in her book “Rising Strong”  rolled around in my head: “Do you believe people are doing the best they can?”  I thought about that for a long time as I sifted through my emotions with this person. Did I really believe they did their best to help me?

Sometimes, no matter how hard a person loves or cares for you, their own brokenness keeps them from carrying you in yours.  That doesn’t mean they don’t want to, and that doesn’t mean they won’t try. Their clumsy attempts can build a fortification of resentment and bitterness around our hearts, and we start to believe the lie that they don’t want to help, but that isn’t true.  They simply can’t.  While this doesn’t always offer comfort, it does help us extend a strange sort of grace to human frailty that we know all too well.  

Because I always aim to offer hope, here is a soul-reminder:

Rest assured that if you are the one left lying cold on the wet pavement somewhere, you are not permanently broken; that’s the beauty of how humans were created – spirits and bodies can heal, and we are in close relationship with the One who designed our healing. Your healing journey may involve a person, a community, a program, therapy, a message or word, a dog (come on now), silence, solitude, lament, grief… the list really does go on.

Let us extend grace to those who try, mercy to those who fail us, and hope for those who see no end to their broken existence. And let us remember that unlike the poor man in the poem, our Healer will never leave us helpless and broken.