Yesterday morning, we had the closing session of our weekend vocation retreat for law students. We began with a prayer service, during which participants were invited to share a prayer, scripture passage, piece of poetry, song, story that had meaning for them. This is always a beautiful service.
One of the students shared a country-western song I had not heard before, Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flats. (Not only had I not heard of the song, but I have no idea who Rascal Flats is or are.) The chorus of the song goes, “God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you.”
Although the song is a love song to a woman, the student explained that, as someone who identified with the Prodigal Son, for him it spoke of the return to God. For him, the line prayed: God blessed the broken road that brought me back to God.
I was powerfully moved by that image. We are all broken. And we can all look back at the path that brought us to God, much of which is indeed broken.
But, do we stop to recognize God’s blessing at each step of the way? That in each misstep, there was blessing? I suspect that we look back with such embarrassment, pain, shame, etc. that we miss the blessing.
Every step of our journey is part of what brought us to where we are by God. And each step is filled with God’s blessing.
God blessed the broken road that brought us back to him.
