I have said things have been rough. It's true. I have been in a very dark place as of late. Giving up has been all too tempting. I've started walking away more than once. I have to say I'm not sure how I am still hanging on. I'm honestly hanging on by a thread and the grace of God...in fact the grace of God may be the thread I'm hanging on to. I'm not sure. I just know I'm dangling.
In the middle of the darkest of the darkness, I had a conversation with a lady who has been walking with me through all of this. She is amazing...really she is. To be completely honest, in the depths of the darkness I have a hard time remembering things. I forget much of a conversation minutes after it is over. I agree to get a simple task done but don't realize I never did it until it is pointed out. It's as if my brain has so much pressure on it that new information, no matter how small, just doesn't stick. Even the conversation I had with this woman who is very special to me is one I don't remember much of. I wish I did. I know I felt less...I'm not sure, frantic maybe, afterwards. It was a profitable conversation. I know that much. Other than that, much of it is lost...except for one thing she said.
I cannot remember the conversation leading up to her comment other than the fact that I said there were so many pieces...too many pieces. In her response she said this...that God is in the business of picking up all those broken, scattered pieces and making them into a beautiful mosaic. That was it. It was a simple response. She probably didn't expect that comment to stay with me, but it has.
A mosaic. I'm a thinker, and I have been thinking a lot about this word picture. It is beautiful actually, and it changes how I think of this journey and the destination. I have always viewed this journey as working towards being put back together. I am broken and the pieces need to be fitted back together much like a puzzle. When the puzzle is put together, I am whole again just like I was before. The fractures are always there as the past cannot be undone, but at least I would be together again. As a puzzle put back together, the person I once was would be whole again albeit always fractured. She used the image of a mosaic rather than a puzzle though.
A mosaic is a piece of art that is made of a lot of small, tiny, broken pieces. Somehow, an artist looks at the chaos of broken shards and sees a beautiful picture. The artist works with the chaotic, scattered pieces one by one, carefully placing them just so until they make a new picture...a beautiful piece of artwork to share with the world. When you look at the whole, you see the beautiful picture the artist created. If you look closer, you see each tiny, broken shard and the cracks between them where the glue holds them together. They are not puzzle pieces that fit together snugly. They are pieces of a mosaic that have breaks between them and a story in each piece that when seen as a whole is a beautiful picture put together by the mind of an artist.
Just like the start of a mosaic, I am a chaotic, scattered, mess of broken shards. Yet, God is an Artist who looks at the scattered pieces and sees a beautiful piece of artwork He wants to share with the world. He patiently works with each tiny, broken shard of me one by one as He creates a new work of art in me. He is not fitting me back together like a puzzle to be who I was before only with fractures where the pieces fit together. No, He is making me NEW.
A mosaic takes old, broken pieces of chaos and brings them together into a new, whole, beautiful work of art. That is what God is doing. He is taking the old, broken pieces of my chaos and creating with them a new, whole, beautiful work of art. When the Artist is finished, others will see a beautiful, whole piece of artwork that He is sharing with the world. Those who take the time to look closer will see each tiny, broken piece I will be made of. Each piece holds a story. Each piece is necessary to create the art He makes with my broken chaos. The glue that holds all the pieces together, that shows in the tiny spaces and cracks between the pieces, will tell of His faithfulness and grace and mercy.
I find this image one of hope. It is an image of something new to come. God is not simply putting me back together to be a fractured version of who I once was. He is taking the fractured pieces that are laying on the ground a scattered mess and making me new. When He is done, the fractures where the pieces don't fit perfectly together will not hold stories of where I broke. No, those fractures will hold stories of how He put me back together. The pieces that will be seen will not hold stories of who I used to be. Instead the pieces of the mosaic of me will tell the story of how where I have walked will mold me into who I become.
God is not putting me together like a puzzle which even when finished is always broken. He is not simply a problem solver trying to figure out which pieces fit into the same old place. He is masterfully putting me together into a new work of art that, though made with broken pieces, does not remain perpetually broken. He is an Artist putting old, broken shards together into a new, beautiful piece of artwork. You will see the broken pieces in the finished product because what has broken me can never be undone, but you will see how the brokenness will shape who I am made to be.
There is no hope in being put back together into a fractured version of who I was much like a puzzle. There is glorious hope in having my broken pieces put together into a new work of art by an Artist who sees beauty I can't. He sees the new masterpiece. He has a vision that I can't see as He works with each shard of my brokenness. He is putting me back together not into the old me but into someone new and beautiful made of the brokenness I am living now.
Redemption is not finishing the puzzle. Redemption is making a mosaic. The broken will be redeemed as a new piece of art is made from the old. This picture has been one tiny ray of light in the depths of this darkness. This hope is helping me hang on as I dangle. This is giving me a new perspective on where I am going. This word picture, this idea of being a mosaic, has lifted me a little bit closer to the exit of this pit I've been stuck in. I haven't gotten out, but I am not falling deeper anymore. I can see a little bit of light. That is enough for now. That is something I needed.
My precious sisters, broken and scattered, He is not putting the old you together. He is not merely fitting pieces of an old puzzle back together so all can see where you broke. He is taking all the broken pieces of who you used to be and artfully creating a new masterpiece telling a story of how you are being put back together...a story of how where you have walked will shape who you become. Find one tiny thread of hope to cling to in knowing the old you is not being put together, but a new you is being made from what is broken now. You, my dear sister, are not a puzzle to be fit back together into the old. You are a mosaic being masterfully made new.
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