broken for you (and me)

I sat with three other women at church last Sunday. When the time for communion came, the waterworks began. I’m not sure who was the first to let go. I started when I saw a couple I know, who recently miscarried after an extended period of trying and hoping, go to the communion table. Then I heard the sniffles of two of the women in my group. Each had suffered a different type of loss of a loved one, and something about communion caused the grief and pain to bubble to the surface. In no time, the other two of us were in tears, perhaps for our friends’ suffering, perhaps at our inability to protect or heal them. Napkins and tissues shuffled back and forth; hands were squeezed. We did what we could to keep ourselves together as we choked down the body of Christ, broken for us, and the blood of Christ, shed for us. When we held hands at the end of the service and prayed the Lord’s prayer, I felt as if we were truly sisters, in communion with each other and with our Father in Heaven.

I’ve always preferred to weep alone in church and would do whatever I could to avoid witnesses to my moments of brokenness, knowing that people can’t help me even if they wanted to. But I’m reconsidering. I can’t shield my loved ones from the jagged edges of life. But I can sit in sackcloth and ashes with them and convey, in some small measure, God’s presence and care through the ministry of tears. And I can let them do so unto me.