Becoming a Poet (all my life)

I wrote this poem for a class my last semester of school. It is a certain style of poetry that requires the lines to end with the same 6 words rotating. The Beauty of the Broken was a thought that had been swimming around in my mind for awhile and it was this assignment that allowed it to come to fruition. I wanted to share it with you because I have again been thinking a lot about how Christ is often reflected better in our broken pieces than in our healthy habits. It is a strange thing that broken glass reflects light so differently than a flawless sheet of glass. I hope that you are encouraged and blessed by this.

The Beauty of the Broken
erin r. woods
April 2006

We call lust, love
and ridicule the lonely.
We call war, hope
and overlook the hurting.
We call pride, beauty
and in it all we are broken.

So Your flesh was broken,
blood poured out in love.
The day You suffered the deepest lonely,
Where then was hope?
As on the cross you hung, hurting,
It seemed Evil had conquered Beauty.

But you rose victorious in beauty.
You left the father of lies broken,
the evil one destroyed by love.
You established a family for the lonely.
This is our hope,
that you came triumphantly through the hurting.

Now you hold the hurting
in the embrace of beauty.
You take the beaten and the broken
and cover them with perfect love.
You seek out the lost and the lonely
and all those living without hope.

It is in You that I found hope
and comfort for the hurting.
You came to me when I had no beauty
and my heart had been broken.
You looked on me with love
and assured me you understood lonely.

You offer life to the lonely.
You are our everlasting hope.
You hold out your hand to the hurting.
You redefine beauty
and restore the broken
by your unfailing love.

You are the Love of the lonely.
You are the Hope of the hurting.
You are the Beauty of the broken.