The Keeper of the Broken Things

Let me be the keeper of the broken things.

Give me the shards of memories you hold on to that hurt so much.

Show me the stitches in your scars.

Let me carry them with you...for you.

Because "grief demands a witness"...so let me be yours.

I want to hear about your baby that barely got to be and how they changed your entire world while the world somehow kept spinning.

I want to hear about what haunts your dreams or keeps you up at night when the world seems to slumber peacefully around you.

I want to hear why you cry in your car before going inside after everyone else has run in like its totally normal that you need an extra 5 minutes just to breathe it all out.

My heart aches so much for the broken things of the world that we all clutch on to...terrified that if we stop clutching them that they'll slip through our fingers and the world will forget...we might forget.

So let me keep your broken things too.

And I will breathe the goodness of God into the shards and the scars.

Because I can see it...the goodness of God in the land of the living.

There was a time when I couldn't. Scar tissue from deep, agonizing wounds clouded my view. And I found people who sat with me and let the broken things be broken...and then they breathed the goodness of God back into those same broken things.

We were never meant to carry the burden of a broken world all alone. Never meant to carry a yoke so heavy that it breaks us. But our hearts are so broken by the circumstances we've faced that it's terrifying to trust someone with our story...to trust God with our story.

It's unbearable to find the goodness in the death of someone you love so deeply. It's not fair to find the goodness of broken dreams and mislaid plans. Why should we have to find the goodness in broken marriages or abusive family members?

Simply because it's there, whether we see it or not...the goodness of God exists in the midst of deep tragedy. But he doesn't demand that you see it..doesn't demand that you stop grieving. He simply waits. A constant and ever faithful Father...a lover of the broken things.

I am a mosaic of all the broken pieces shaped back together into something new, held in place by the love and mercy of a faithful God. A God who gathers up all those broken things and calls them good....calls them better...calls them healed...calls them by name.

Healer...redeemer...savior...the keeper of the broken things.

Because He sees the broken things...

He hears the broken things...

He keeps the broken things...

So let me have them too.

And I will breathe the goodness of God back into them for you when you cannot.

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