Blessed Are The Ruined: For the Ones Still Learning to Stand

There’s a quiet kind of holiness in falling apart.

Nobody tells you that.
They preach “resilience” and “rebirth,” but they never talk about the in-between — the part where you’re standing in the wreckage of your own life, barefoot and pissed off, wondering how the hell you’re supposed to rebuild when everything you believed in is scattered on the floor.

This post is for that version of you.
The one sitting in the ruins, not ready to rise yet, not sure if you ever will.

Because here’s the truth no one puts in their little inspirational quotes:

Being ruined isn’t a failure. It’s a beginning.

I learned that the hard way — by losing things I thought I’d die without, by surviving things I didn’t think I could, by clawing my way out of addictions, identities, relationships, and beliefs that were slowly swallowing me whole.

Ruin didn’t break me.
Ruin introduced me to myself.

The version of me that wasn’t shaped by shame.
The version of me that wasn’t bending for approval.
The version of me that was still wild, still soft, still capable of wanting something better.

Ruin stripped away the performance.
Ruin ripped out the rot.
Ruin forced me to stop pretending I was fine.

And what a blessing that turned out to be.

Because it’s only when everything falls apart that you finally have room to ask the real questions:

Who am I when I am no longer performing purity?
Who am I when the world stops telling me who I should be?
Who am I when all that’s left is truth and trembling?

That’s where the basement begins — in the trembling.

In the moment you stop trying to resurrect the version of yourself who was silently falling apart anyway.
In the moment you let the old you die so the real you can finally take her first breath.

The healing doesn’t come from pretending you’re whole.
It comes from honoring the crack in the foundation and deciding it’s not the end of the story.

Blessed are the ruined,
because they’re the only ones honest enough to rebuild themselves on purpose.

Blessed are the ones learning to stand again.
Blessed are the ones who crawl when walking hurts.
Blessed are the ones who lost everything and still had the audacity to keep going.
Blessed are the ones whose softness survived the apocalypse.
Blessed are the ones who don’t pray anymore but still crave meaning.
Blessed are the ones who left the church but not their longing.

You.
You are blessed.

Not because you’re perfect.
Not because you’re holy.
Not because you’ve healed “the right way.”
But because you kept going even when it made no sense.

If no one’s ever told you that, consider this your benediction.

May your ruin be the soil your next self grows in.
May your healing be feral and yours alone.
And may you always know there’s a seat for you in the basement.

— Beverly, your favorite damaged saint