Broken Pencil: An Original Poem Written by a Maryland Therapist
A client once said to me…
Maybe the purpose of life is finding your purpose
Otherwise you’re not really living, just waking up.
Those lines have always resonated with me
Because maybe life really is that simple
Simply living so that eventually I could find me.
I think the process of finding me
Is when I’m in the middle of uncertainty
A place between where I wanna be
While trying to figure out what God is really doing.
That moment when dark soil covers me
So that the seed that’s being planted
Can emerge and provide more clarity
Like a diamond under pressure
Knows not what kind of beauty comes from pressure
Or like the oyster
Knows not what kind of irritation
Creates pearls that one day I could place around my neck.
I guess…
To create beautiful things
You have to experience some suffering.
Some suffering I had to experience
To be created beautifully.
That brings me to another client
Who broke down brokenness
In a matter of minutes
A teenager who really gets it…
Educating me on how broken things still work
She said: Ms. Ross, you can throw away a broken pencil
Or you can sharpen what’s left”
This epiphany taught me
That even if I lose some things
Not all is lost because God can still use me
And that while I may be broken
I’m not broke…
Light can still shine through the cracks
Remember that.
I used to wonder why I had to go through so many things
Until I realized that a healer
Has to go through things to heal and be healed.
Henri Nouwen once said: wounded healers still heal
I guess wounds generate scars
Not to have you scarred
But to remind you that it is in the undergoing
That you’re not going under
But coming up for something better
Because the come up is so much better
It always comes back to purpose
And that’s why I’m a therapist
Because life is about living
Not just waking up.
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Written by: Dereka Ross, LCPC
Photo Credit: Tara Winstead and Alexander Wendt
Date of Download: 3/1/2022
