I wrote this 4 months after my husband died. It's a villanelle, a nineteen line poem with two rhyme scheme. The last lines of each stanza repeat alternating between two stanzas. I usually prefer free verse, but the villanelle was a challenge I wanted to take on after teaching it to my kids. The expression "fellowship of the broken" popped in my head and I had to check to find I had heard it more than a decade earlier from the writings of Henri Nouwen. While I agree with none of his work, this line about the "fellowship of the broken" was beautiful. In the poem I describe those broken by suffering, those being shaped and molded by God in the process. Suffering is far too often a lonely existence. The sufferer is left to shift through the wreckage on their own. What impact could we make on the world for the kingdom of God if we were a fellowship of broken people loving each other in the process?
Join the fellowship of the broken
Here where living sacrifices are made
Along the path you never would have chosen.
When life has left you frozen
And its blows have you way-laid
Meet the fellowship of the broken.
Let the tears do their work to soften
Let the ends become frayed
On the path you never would have chosen.
May strength in weakness awaken
Flee from your carefully crafted masquerade
In the fellowship of the broken.
Companionship in the pain can be found when
Grief is welcomed; sorrows bade
Upon the path you never would have chosen.
The truest worship to God will be spoken
The costliest, yet most precious praise will be raised
In the gathering of the fellowship of the broken
Along the path you never would have chosen.