Someone Broken
By Doug Bursch
Who broke you? Who crushed your worth and made you the man I see today?
It’s always great with you, always victorious, always going well and better than before.
You’ve given every one in this room advice. Yet none can be taken, nothing can be learned by you.
Who harmed you? Who crushed the little boy, took away his worth? Who made you feel so worthless and useless and wretched? Who called your precious personality rebellion and sin? Who made you so afraid?
Now we sit here again, with you saving the world, rescuing the world, correcting the world, while it can’t possibly sit well with you. Deep within those interior walls, this life cannot set well with you?
I wish I could go way back, before you received the title, the role, and the ministerial garb. I wish I could go way back and find that room where you were harmed. I’d look that bastard in the eyes and tell him to repent. “Stop harming your little boy! You are turning him into a prison.”
A prison he cannot escape, a prison where he is warden, guard, and captive. Who broke you? Most likely someone very broken, someone very much like you.
Wow…so true. So true for many of us in ways unique to our experiences. So infuriating because you would love to go back to that point in time that would change so much in their life (your) life. Grateful that God will use the ‘bad’ for His good if we allow it. Thanks for a great poem Doug!
Thanks Kim, I’ve just been thinking a lot about how our sense of self influences what we do and say. Being accepted and loved as a child, leads to healthy confidence as an adult. Being judged and condemned as a child often leads to overcompensating. Sadly, we sometimes judge people who really need our love to help them walk forward in freedom.
This sounds like someone in a very sad condition. I hope that it is a composite picture of more than one man, for his sake. However, if it is one only, I will certainly say prayers for him.
I was thinking about what I see often, broken people trying to gain their worth by how others percieve them. Sadly, trying to be important in the eyes of others, is usually an issue of trying to gain value from others. Too often I will judge people negatively who act self important. This is something I must repent of on a regular basis. For most people try to do the best they know how. If we knew their story, we would extend more grace and less judgment.