ordinary sacred

My son broke a plate recently. It was a brand that was supposed to be unbreakable, but when it shattered, it broke into more pieces that I have ever seen any other plate have. We are still finding shards weeks later.

Sometimes life feels like that broken plate. Pieces, sometimes many pieces, scattered across the floor of the soul. Tiny shards that hide away in crevices to be found long after you’ve swept up the mess. Pieces that don’t make a whole anymore.

I found a broken piece hidden in a crack in my soul this week. It all started with an email from someone I used to know well. And suddenly, in those moments, I felt the prick of a broken piece of glass in my heart, long after- years after- I had swept up the shards. But it caused me to revisit that place of pain. To allow God to tend to it with the loving care that only Jesus can offer.

Some pieces of life just aren’t fixable. At least not this side of heaven. It’s a reality that sits heavy on many of us- no matter all our attempts to grow, to be in relationship, to love, to care- some things are not reconcilable. Some pieces never find their way back to the whole.

And so we live in that tension. I live in that tension.

And the thing about living in tension is this: in tension we can see God’s grace all the more. In the aching, shard-pricked parts of us that we long to be healed and whole and freed from. In the things that can be forgiven but never restored. In the moments when we accept the limits of others and at the same time, grieve because their limits mean you will not find fulfillment.

Acceptance of broken shards is grace. The ability to carry such heavy burdens and consistently find the strength of God helping us along, lifting it from us. There’s a lostness in the process; but in being lost we find Jesus. The Jesus who comes to us.

So whenever the tiny pricks of broken stories shift in our souls, making us jump as we realize their existence in us, we are prompted to lift our hands to the Lord, and trust his wide berth of grace. And continue to walk in the ways he would have for us.