JULY 29 ― Beauty in brokenness. Sometimes it is hard to imagine such a scenario, and yet it happens. Sometimes it is difficult to see, and sometimes it takes time before the beauty is exposed, but if you look hard enough, you will find beauty in the broken things in life.

I don’t think we can argue that our world is broken, deeply, deeply broken. We have different ideas of how it got this way, that is ok, healthy even, but there is no denying that around us, indeed often in us, exists a deeply broken and hurting world.

Sometimes it is difficult for me to remember, or even accept, especially when it is my heart which is broken, that there is beauty to be found. And my heart breaks every day.

When I see mothers dying of AIDS, children dying of malnutrition, fathers unable to find work to feed their families, girls prostituting themselves, children abandoned because of poverty; when I hear of people eating cookies made of dirt in Haiti, of trafficked children in South-east Asia, of genital mutilation in Kenya; my heart breaks, and I fail to see any beauty in the situation.

But oftentimes it is in the most desperate of places where I have seen beauty, beauty like I have never seen before.

One of those times is in the story of the little girl with the broken heart. It took weeks of love and care and careful monitoring before she began to trust anyone with even making eye contact. She would cry only when she was hungry. She would play by herself a bit with toys but she wouldn’t interact with any of her caregivers.

Slowly, but surely, she began trusting us again. It was slow, and it was painful for everyone. She would progress, and then regress. Before too long she began smiling again, and one day we heard her giggle at one of her foster siblings. It was a sound so beautiful.

Healing was happening. She grew and was healthy and she became happy, so very happy. She laughed and played with everyone. But she still had difficult moments. She still didn’t trust easily. She often became anxious when her caregiver was not around.

Her difficult moments were not over either. As much as she was loved and adored and happy, the group home she was in surrounded by other children with heart disease was no substitute for a family. The government placed her on an adoption list and soon her family came for her, and for the 2nd time in her little life she was taken from the people she knew and loved, and placed in the care of strangers; strangers who loved her, but strangers still.

And yet, through the brokenness of her birth and first months on this planet, blossomed a beautiful story, one that is still being written.

For she did find a family, a family who loved her exceedingly. She struggled to trust them, and she still has insecurities, but she loves and laughs and smiles all the time.

Beauty came from the brokenness.

And that is the thing about broken situations; sometimes there is nothing beautiful at all about them, but sometimes it is us that get to be part in making it beautiful.

And sometimes they are horrific, and heart wrenching, and yet when you look hard you can see beauty; but be careful in calling it so without being willing to be part of making it more beautiful. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen was a woman, hungry, dirty and with nothing, give her withered breast to her newborn babe.

She barely had life herself, but what she had, she gave; and it was stunningly beautiful. And yet, unless I, or someone else, was willing to get in and do something about her situation the beauty of her actions would be fleeting and pass by; for they both surely would have soon died.

Recently I was contacted about a newborn baby whose face has been deformed by a birth defect called a cleft lip and palate. Her parents were so scared.

For me it was an easy fix. I knew what to do, I knew how to help, I had the resources to do so and I arranged for her to be cared for.

After doing what needed done, a friend said to me,”Thank you for doing all of that for this little girl.” I brushed him off and said there was no need to thank me; after all I had done nothing. He responded, “You ask the parents of this child and let them define for you what you have done.”

And I realised, without pride, that indeed I had played a part, a little one, but a part, in bringing beauty to this situation, in fact even in literally bringing beauty to a face.

What I have learned is there is beauty in the brokenness around us, but sometimes it does take us, beauty doesn’t always just exist on its own. Sometimes situations need love and compassion and us pouring out a little of ourselves before any beauty appears.

I have also learned that beauty doesn’t always show itself immediately. Sometimes it takes years and a lot of work before broken situations become beautiful.

Beauty in brokenness is one of the most stunning forms of beauty I have ever seen in this world, but the thing about it is, you have to be willing to get down to the brokenness to find it.

You will not find it when blowing by it in your air-conditioned car, while seeing it on the news, or by walking past it on your way to work. You actually have to stop and let it break your own heart before you can see the beauty that is there.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.