Oh no. That was my first thought as I pulled the “Cookies for Santa” plate out of the box. The kids will be devastated. They painted this years ago and we have pulled it out every year. But it was broken, straight down the middle. My first thought was, it’s fixable. Super glue will fix it and no one will know. As I fully unwrapped the plate from the tissue paper it had been packed away in, I noted the date. 2009. What. A. Year. As I reflected on that particular Christmas and that year, I laughed at myself. My reaction of how to fix the plate so no one would know, was the same to fix my marriage that year.
The summer of 2009 brought a storm of pain to my family. My marriage was quickly dissolving and I had no way out of the downward spiral my life was taking. My first reaction was to just not let anyone know what was happening. I had to maintain the image of perfection. I didn’t want the world to see my family as broken. I didn’t want the world to see me as broken. Broken things aren’t perfect and perfect was what I wanted life to be. I could not let the world see how broken my life was. It wasn’t supposed to look this way! Not acknowledging it seemed like the best idea. But as I tried to super glue my broken life, it just became more fragmented and eventually shattered. It was shattered beyond all recognition and all I was left with was a pile of dust.
You can’t glue dust. By Christmas of that year, that’s exactly what I was looking at, dust. My once idyllic life had become a shattered and broken mess that was beyond saving. I didn’t plan for this. It certainly wasn’t a part of my 5 year plan or my 10 year plan. A shattered marriage certainly hadn’t been on my to do list or a part of my goals for that year. Yet, there I sat. 2 little kids, a beautiful home, and a broken marriage.
My decade challenge looks a little different than most. I look back and I am overwhelmed in what God has done in my life in those 10 years. My life looks very different than it did the Christmas of 2009, in every way better. I no longer live with the fear of people really seeing me for who I am, because I encountered the God who sees me (Genesis 16:13). I no longer fear stepping in to my calling because I have encountered the God who has called me (Isaiah 43;1). I no longer fear being vulnerable and honest because I have encountered the God who knew me before he knit me together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). I sit in December of 2019, a whole woman. A woman that God has used her shattered life to create a beautiful masterpiece of his grace and love.
If you sit today where life doesn’t look like it’s supposed to look… where the daily thought is “there has to be more than this”, where you carry around a bottle of super glue for life hoping to fix all the broken pieces at least temporarily so no one will see. Let me encourage you in this, it doesn’t have to stay broken. I know a God that can take your shattered mess and create a beautiful piece of art if only you will surrender the mess to him. He’s a God that specializes in redeeming messes.
