Broken Pieces

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  Psalm 147:3

When you teach in a Catholic School with nearly 300 students and each classroom  has a set of Rosaries, that’s lots of beads and crucifixes that just don’t always stay together.  Every year a 6th grader emerges who becomes the “Rosary Repairman”.  This year I have a Rosary Repairman Extrodinare!  Justin can fix any Rosary no matter how broken it might be.  He works with speed and precision and intention.  I handed him a whole bag of broken and mismatched and knotted Rosaries thinking it would take him weeks to get the mess tended to.  I think he had them  perfectly restored using some spare and new parts in less than two days.  I’m always a little excited when a teacher brings me the broken ones because it tells me someone has been using them and that is great news!

I was thinking about this scripture the other morning as I watched Justin find the broken Rosaries I had put on his desk, grab his repair kit and swiftly begin his work.  To be honest, I think he loves it when he finds some brokenness waiting on his desk for him. There is a challenge to restoring them and returning them to a classroom ready to be used for their intended purpose again.  I think he sees those broken Rosaries the same way God sees our brokenness.  It doesn’t make us worthless, it makes us needy.  Those broken Rosaries need Justin, his tools and his patience in the same way we need the Father in the midst of our brokenness.

Every single one of us is broken.  We’ve experienced broken dreams, broken relationships, and broken promises.  We’ve lived through pain and loss and consequences that have left us chipped, cracked and leaking but none of that matters to the Father who loves us in the middle of our broken pieces.  In fact, he loves us so much he can’t wait to restore and refine and repair us but we have to bring all our brokenness to him.  Justin can’t restore all those Rosaries unless someone brings them to him.  Just like the Father,  he doesn’t ask questions or make judgements or discriminate about which ones get to be repaired, he just restores them and returns them so they can complete their purpose.

I was listening to an Advent video from the Unshakable Joy series by Chris Stefanick and he said something that really hit my heart.  He said, “If you use something for a purpose it wasn’t intended for, it gets broken.  If you use a microwave as a fork warmer, it’s gonna get broken.”   How often are we left feeling broken because we headed down a path that wasn’t intended for us.  How many times have we been left feeling cracked, chipped or leaking because we invested in a relationship or a behavior that led us away from God’s intended purpose for our life?  How many times have we tried to use a microwave like a fork warmer and found ourselves left like those broken Rosaries that wind up on Justin’s desk?

This Advent let’s take some time to look at our brokenness and lay it at the feet of Jesus and ask him to repair, restore and refine us so we can get busy doing the things we were intended to do.

A Seed To Plant:  Make a list of the brokenness you feel in your life and ask Jesus to swoop in and repair and restore you.​

Blessings on your day!