Today something broke. It just fell to the ground. And shattered into pieces.
“Oh no,” I cried, and collected what was left of the wooden sign which had hung at our porch window.
I had opened the window for the first time this Spring. And down the sign came, which had hung there safely all winter long.
“You are my sunshine,” it says, and I sighed once more about the irony.
Because my sunshine, the man I had gifted the sign, wasn’t in a good mood. Neither was I.
We had gotten ourselves into an argument while driving back from a lovely walk along the shores of the Mississippi.
And now, our mutual sunshine lay scattered in front of us.
“Oh no,” our daughter now cried, whom we had picked up on our way back.
“Can we fix it, daddy?” she asked with a face holding both sadness and hope.
“Mama, can we fix it?”
So here we are, dear friends, called into repair mode by a little broken sign and the witness of our daughter.
“I think we can,” I said.
“We have wood glue,” my husband added.
“But how?” my daughter asked.
And so Chuck sat down with her at the table, puzzling together the broken pieces.
“Something is missing,” my husband said. “Can you look for it?”
My daughter dove down on her knees to scan the floor under the window where the piece had landed.
“Ich hab’s!” she exclaimed happily. “Found it!”
Now they had all the pieces. And while I was getting supper ready, I overheard their rescue operation.
“Ok, we need glue, dad,” she said.
“Yes we do,” dad responded.
“And then we glue it all back together and done,” our daughter added.
“No,” dad said, “we have to glue it piece by piece, and let each part dry before we add the next, so it does not fall apart again.”
My heart melted.
Piece by piece, indeed, that is how it will be whole again.
And piece by piece, dear friends, is how healing comes.
My daughter was a little distraught anticipating the time it might take to fully fix the broken sign.
And it is understandable.
Who does not want a quick fix?
And so rarely we take time anymore to mend things. We often just go and buy new.
Or we change the church we cannot stand any longer.
We let go of a friendship which seems too broken.
We even let go of a love which seems in disrepair.
Collecting the broken pieces sometimes just seems too much work, too desperate.
There is this idea that healing befalls us in a one-time moment.
A Divine intervention, and good to go.
Just like faith would happen in one glorious conversion experience.
But we all know deep faith comes slowly, and it needs time to grow.
If it does not, it is not growing.
Healing is the same.
It involves collecting the broken pieces.
Bending deep to also find the smallest one which was scattered when we fell.
Healing asks us to look for each piece like the shepherd searches for the lost sheep.
And then slowly, and with patience, to put it back together piece by piece.
In the end we will not be the same any longer. Often we do not find all the missing pieces. And even the ones we find will show their wear. They will be chipped and bent. Some pieces we must let go of altogether, and slowly grow something new into the gap.
Just like Spring does not start with fruit but with tiny buds, healing does too.
The seasons teach us. They tell of patience and growth.
Piece by piece.
One step at a time.
Blessing
May you find comfort
in the slow unfolding of Spring,
in the small green shoots,
the tender buds,
the hidden roots
doing their patient work below.May you have patience
for all in you
that is still trying to become whole.
May you not throw away
what still longs to be mended.And when something lies scattered in your life,
may there be loving hands beside you,
willing to kneel to the floor
and search for the missing pieces.May you trust the slow work of healing.
Piece by piece.
One step at a time.
Much love to you int this season of growing and deepening, Almut
PS: If you can, leave a heart, a word or a line which resonated with you in the comments, so we know you have been here :-)
Inspiration
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (Letter Four, July 16, 1903)
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beautiful and timely, almut. it reminds me of a song from a movie about st. francis:
stone by stone and step by step,
take your time, go slowly.
do few things but do them well,
simple joys are holy.
praying for our country to mend.
May you have patience
for all in you
that is still trying to become whole.
May you not throw away
what still longs to be mended.
This really speaks to my heart today. That, and the next stanza about someone bending to look for the lost piece.
It speaks to my personal condition but I also wonder how it might speak to our broken nation, especially since too many leaders seem determined to break it more?