The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
Psalm 51:17
Set in Emilia-Romagna, Italy is the city of Ravenna. In this Italian city lies the Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. Situated along the walls of this classic cathedral are 26 mosaics depicting the life of Christ. Each one consisting of hundreds and thousands of little broken pieces of colorful rock and glass purposefully pieced together in the portraits of the Messiah.
I am amazed at the elegance of a mosaic. What I would see as simply fractured chunks, the artist sees as a masterpiece of detail and beauty.
Life has looked like a pile of broken pieces too often. Chunks of hopes and dreams seemingly destroyed by life and circumstances. It is often hard to admit that you are broken. It is even harder to come to a place of being okay in the brokenness.
The reality is that we are vessels meant and built to be poured through. Too often when life has cracks in it we try to patch up the holes in hopes of holding in all that we have. I am coming to a place of realization that it is under the pressures of life that the cracks in life allow what is inside to leak out. It is in those moments God leaks the most.
So often in the broken times God wants us to be his vessel. I have spent much of life patching holes, repairing broken cracks and mending hurts to hold in the goodness of God. This seems to be the opposite of what God wants for us. David said “the sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.” We keep trying to fix what God wants broken.
God’s longing is to take the broken pieces and make a mosaic of your life. God wants to not simply fix the brokenness but use it for his glory. As much as this sounds crazy, God wants you broken. It is a paradox to what we think and even want. I am not saying God wants you to hurt, but God can use your hurt. I am not saying God wants to have you walk through heartache and loss, but God wants your broken heart to be a part of mending the hearts of others.
God wants to leak out of the brokenness of our life onto others.
It has taken years and I am still learning to admit this, but I am a broken and I am getting okay with it. Because God is taking those broken pieces with jagged edges of shattered life to make a beautiful mosaic of my life. A mosaic that stands as a testament and testimony to what God can do with my broken mess.
He simply says”he makes all things beautiful in his time” including all our broken pieces.
