To say I've been busy is an understatement. It's all been a good, life-affirming style of busy. It's a busy absorbed in the details and workings of my own life which I neglected for too long, not investing enough of my own efforts into myself. You don't realize it until things have to change or things do change.
So much movement and change. It's been wonderful - but change is difficult. It's necessary but difficult. That being said, I moved last week to a wonderful little space. A move that was much desired and much needed. In moving, I packed a few of my most precious items to make sure I didn't lose track of them.
Then one of the boxes was damaged. One of my most prized items - this saucer you see here - was broken. It's a saucer my grandmother owned with an equally gorgeous green tea cup. I stood there looking at it on the stairs as it laid there..... I didn't have time to be devastated. I needed to gather everything that had let loose from the container - old family photos, my grandfather's discharge papers from the military after WWII, old coins, small figurines I'd been gifted, one of the only surviving photos of my parents wedding.... you know, important things.
Out of all the things that could've broken, this was the casualty. I sighed. I couldn't even cry. My grandmother wouldn't want it that way (she enjoyed mending and putting things back together). I shoved it into a tube with some artwork and then pulled it out as soon as I brought some of my things into my new place.
Fast forward to later in the week, I was reading a random post about being broken after a break up.
Sweet Merciful Jesus.
Let's discuss this for a moment. For some reason it was as if the Lord had commanded the Universe to send this over to me as a reminder. It wasn't about the saucer any longer. It was about me.
I had to stop and take a minute and think about it. The word has found a home on my board at work. The idea of being more beautiful after being broken.... to be more beautiful with my imperfections.
This idea stopped me in my tracks. I sat on it for a few days and I had to wrap my mind around how much MORE beautiful the items were with their new cracks and gold lines. No two would be the same. Nothing breaks in the same way.
How is it that it's not a metaphor for life? That with every hurt or disappointment, with every thing that may not work out, with the times people leave or you leave, or the moments we're hurt, the moments we find we're in the wrong and have done the breaking.... the moments we second guess ourselves and our value, that with each crack and the mending that can happen we're more valuable, more beautiful and truly a work of art - and stronger than before the break.
This moment made me cry. There was nothing left to do but to be thankful. I can only be thankful for the breaks, for the fuck ups, the moments I've messed up. It's made me feel more beautiful, more worthy.
I could do nothing but sit on my new floor that evening and be thankful for the moment I was in and all I'd been through to get to it. A true message of renewal and just in time for the celebration of this Holy week.
God is both gracious and merciful and generous. May His (Her) Blessings follow you in these seasons.
With Love and Gratitude,
Rae