Shattered!

Ouch! Those pieces scattered on the floor are sharp and brittle.

Have you ever dropped a glass and the moment it shattered you realized you were now standing on a mine field of potentially painful shards of penetrating agony? Always in bare feet, no less. Those big pieces that you can see clearly are the least of your concerns. Carefully you pick them up and dispose of them while trying not to be penalized by a “travel” as you keep your feet firmly planted on the only spot of floor you know to be safe.

But it’s those itty bitty slivers.

You know the ones I’m talking about, right? Those pieces that gleam in just the right light, staring at you from a distance, taunting you with their razor edges saying, come and get me if you dare, but there are about 30 million thousand more waiting to get you! Yep! Ouch!

And that’s just the beginning:)

Most times, there are lil bits running around, half-naked, just waiting to go exactly where your screaming words demanded they stay far from! And your heart drops and your mind reels on how the words, “Don’t move!” translated to “Quick! Toddle barefooted as quickly as you can through the landmine of glass shards so mommy can explain to the doctor how much of a mess of a parent she is” before the words hit the ears of your turdlers!

You are following along half chuckling, half face-palming because you can totally relate! I’ll bet you are even currently thinking of that very moment or moments…

This is how I imagine my life to be.

Often when we think of a “broken vase” this is the picture we come up with …..

You know how I know? Because it was the first picture that popped up on google when I entered, “broken vase”.

Neat, tidy, large, broken pieces of fine pottery. Easily glued back together…few slivers aside, nothing a little diy video on refurbishing a broken dish can’t fix. Then suddenly….TADA~! A brand new work of art!

And then, there is real life.

We expect somehow to come back to being the same, more artistic version of ourselves after being shattered. And then we are disappointed to find out…there is no possible way to piece the vessel back together the way it once was.

For me, while I cannot pinpoint it, I slowly shattered the day, 35weeks into expecting our precious baby girl, Bella Raine, the doctors could not find her heartbeat. Then, I shattered again the moment they handed me her lifeless body. I shattered again the day it all sunk in 6 weeks later during the follow-up ultrasound when the space she occupied for 3 long trimesters was empty.

The shock helped to absorb the initial blows. I was numb. So, the ability to cope seemed so much easier than it would soon become.

The next 3 years would be traumatic. God gave us Remington, but chose to give him ichthyosis just like Raylen, just like Bella. I only thought my hands were already full.

Then, God allowed things to fall apart with my husband’s mental and physical health.

God allowed financial overwhelm to become our new normal as we worked at navigating life without a steady income from my husband.

Loss seemed to come in wave after wave as we buried my Memom, my mother-in-law, my grandfather, our neighbor, and hit after hit it never seemed to take a break. Quarantine started strangling me.

People would come into our lives as our home became a revolving door of constant hustle and bustle and I thought we were serving in the capacity God wanted us to. But soon I learned that there was just not enough me to go around. Anger and resentment, frustration and bitterness, pain and loss were taking their toll on every aspect of my life and I was barely keeping it together.

I was trying to piece everyone’s lives back together; be the constant voice of reason and stability. Prove to whomever I felt necessary that I was some kind of super mom/wife/woman who could never be broken. I knew the Bible promises by heart. I sang the songs. I did the devotions. I read the verses. I prayed the prayers. I worked on my attitude. I tried to submit to the present idea of contentment.

And then it happened…all at once!

The cracked up, splintered version of myself, the pieces I figured were no big deal to mend, the creative person I was, that was determined to make something beautiful out of the shattered pieces of my life, was completely and utterly broken beyond repair.

Somehow, in the midst of the crazy past 3 years of living, I had not just fallen, cracked, bruised, bent….I was a completely shattered, unrecognizable shard of who I once was.

And the splintering hurt! Oh dear me it hurt! Embarrassed to show my own face in the mirror to myself, let alone the world. What kind of mess I was. Everyone can see right through me. Why am I even praying? The sound of my voice has got to be the most nails-against-the-chalkboard sound I have ever heard. I know nothing. I am nothing.

So much for hiding.

Everyone was still tugging at me. A woman’s work is never done…right? Find me a mask!

Here we go…

Are you still with me?

So…anyone here a master at remaking a completely shattered piece of precious porcelain? Anyone here capable of not missing a single piece? Not one single sliver? How about being able to hold all those pieces in your hand? How about being able to do it with so much grace that even in the midst of it falling to the ground, there was no reaction, just the loving, gentle action of gathering every piece in calm serenity and silence? How about the ability to have the foreknowledge that it was gonna fall in the first place?

More like the first scenario I described in the beginning of this post, right?

But, can you believe that’s exactly what God does??????

Does that blow your mind like it does mine????

Is it so incredibly humbling to realize that an infinite, powerful, Almighty God could be such a very gentle caregiver to His children? As the Master Potter, is it not so incredibly breath-taking that He would take the time to gather every piece of your former self and decide NOT to discard you, but to make you again a new vessel!?!

I’m actually sitting here envisioning the sounds of tiny pieces of broken glass swirling around in my vacuum cleaner, pleased and relieved to have “taken care” of the mess that would soon make its way to the garbage and no longer be a menace to me or anyone else walking by.

Thank God He is not like that!

His Grace is Unshattered! Take a moment to let that sink in…..