From Broken to Beautiful

“There are times when I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be healed!” – Gordon Harold

From Broken to Beautiful

“There are times when I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be healed!” He said to me.

The words were like a vice on my heart!  I knew what he’d been going through and I yearned for relief.  For him to have respite from his pain!

In this particular case the healing he needed was not physical, though there are aspects of his agony I watched affect his health.  What was really happening was an unrelenting emotional trauma.  Such seems to be endemic during our time.

In another time, during my childhood, my mother taught me a lesson about chickens.

“Why does that chicken have so many feathers missing?” I asked my mother as we stood looking at chickens in a yard near her Paragonah, Utah childhood home.

“One chicken starts to pick at another and soon all begin to pick at her.  Once they start, they often pick at her until she dies!”  My mother said, with sadness interwoven through her words.

That was just after she told me where the name Paragonah came from.  As a settlement, Paragonah was first known as Red Creek, but the name was later changed to Paragoonah and then Paragonah. There are conflicting sources as to the name's precise meaning, I’ve heard at least one other meaning, but the consensus is that it is of Southern Paiute origin meaning red water.  My mother explained that when it rains, which is not often, the flowing water picks up the red soil as it runs, turning the water red.  And, because she taught me both lessons at about the same time, I’ve always associated “hen-pecked” chickens and Paragonah together.  

I’ll never forget the feeling of despair and horror I felt as I watched that poor hen-pecked chicken running and running just to get away from her numerous attackers. It seemed to me that blood would soon be dripping from the victim-hen just as the red water sometimes flowed in that same town.

As my friend told me of his pain this childhood vision of chickens in Paragonah rushed into the forefront of my mind.  Luckily, my mother was kind enough to teach me that there could be more than one ending to the pain of a hen-pecked chicken.

“Once they start,” she continued, “they’ll often stay at her until she dies.  Once chickens smell blood they often turn cannibalistic.  But, we’re here and can offer a better solution.”

She went on to tell me that the better solution is to simply intercede on the victim’s behalf.

“We can go in there and remove her! If we do that and put her in a safe place where she can be nourished and cared for, she’ll regain her strength and her feathers will once again flourish after a time.”  She explained.  “Sometimes she can be reintroduced back into the flock.  Sometimes she can’t.  That’s not what matters right now.  What matters is that we can offer her respite!”

“I can offer him respite!”  I said to myself, as my flight with the chicken memory ended.

“There are times when I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be healed!” Gordon said to me.

“I understand!”  I said with warmth in my voice. “The first thing for you to know is that I’ve gone through what you’re experiencing.  You’re not alone!  I’m here for you!  It will take some time, but we can walk together from broken to beautiful!”

Know that when your feathers have been pecked away by the flocks of chickens in your life, and you feel as if the red water of Paragonah is rushing all over you, you can go from broken to beautiful again.  It will take time and refuge, but it can happen when you accept the respite offered by good friends and family.