{"id":933,"date":"2026-08-30T19:37:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T19:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/?p=933"},"modified":"2026-08-30T19:37:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T19:37:14","slug":"beauty-from-brokenness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/2026\/08\/30\/beauty-from-brokenness\/","title":{"rendered":"Beauty from Brokenness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a time of silence and solitude during yesterday’s prayer retreat at my church, I looked over the long row of pine trees lining the parking area as I meandered outside quietly musing. I was drawn to this one, its multitude of broken or sawed-off limbs, along with scars from even older wounds, catching my eye and my imagination. I mused on what this tree has endured over the decades, sometimes leaving obvious scars, other times just a faint hint of what had transpired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I sketched, prayers formed in my heart and mind, sometimes with words, sometimes in images of brokenness, pain and healing, all telling stories of perseverance. Today, as I reflect on my sketch again, I am drawn into prayer, more in images than words, for others I know who are also struggling with pain and brokenness from a variety of sources. May they and I endure through it all to the unique beauty that comes of persevering through pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In a time of silence and solitude during yesterday’s prayer retreat at my church, I looked over the long row of pine trees lining the parking area as I meandered outside quietly musing. I was drawn to this one, its multitude of broken or sawed-off limbs, along with scars from even older wounds, catching my eye and my imagination. I mused on what this tree has endured over the decades, sometimes leaving obvious scars, other times just a faint hint of what had transpired. As I sketched, prayers formed in my heart and mind, sometimes with words, sometimes in images of brokenness, pain and healing, all telling stories of perseverance. Today, as I reflect on my sketch again, I am drawn into prayer, more in images than words, for others I know who are also struggling with pain and brokenness from a variety of sources. May they and I endure through it all to the unique beauty that comes of persevering through pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-and-prayer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theartofprayer.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}