GLUEING THE BROKEN SHARDS BACK TOGETHER

AMagill / Foter / CC BY

Trust…
to place confidence:depend.

As a child I intuitively trusted my parents.
As a wife I faithfully trust my husband.
As a parent I want my children to trust me.
As a Christ Follower I live by my trust in God.

This character, this quality known as trust is something seemingly easy to do, yet hard to do. It can be quickly built and quickly torn down. Yet, we all find security in it. We live with confidence or dependence on this person or that relationship.

I wonder what it is like for you? Is it easy, or is it hard?

There’s some precious ones who’s lineage of circumstances are such that fear outweighs their ability to trust anyone. The beauty of this trust in their life was once shattered by circumstances and people’s actions.

When this precious one comes into your home and you are faced with repairing the damage of other’s choices in their life, where do you start? How do you pick up the broken, shattered pieces of their past and carefully begin to help them glue each one back together? One.By.One.

Because these are broken, shattered pieces of the precious one’s life, I believe we must treat them very carefully and with great caution. Jumping in without thought and the sole purpose of just getting the mess cleaned up will inevitably harm not only the precious one, but the one cleaning up the mess. Trust me{or not} I know too personally.

Each shard of this broken, shattered life represents something of importance. Something that shouldn’t be overlooked or taken for granted. Things like abandonment, loss, abuse, trauma, fear, loneliness, poverty, hunger, and other unimaginable things that most people can’t even comprehend. Can you? Can you comprehend what some of these shards of glass would feel like? How they might cut you to the core if you were walking in those precious one’s shoes?

God has continued to show me my need to be better at picking up the pieces. Do better in cleaning up the mess of others that shattered the trust of this precious one. In the midst of picking up and glueing the pieces back together it’s all too easy to be caught up in myself and the frustration of the behavior. This is where I forget the person is not the behavior, and the behavior is not by choice but of instinct. The instinct to survive in a world that has betrayed one’s trust. The instinct that tells the precious one he’s the only one in the world he can or ever will be able to trust.

It’s in these moments that I need to slow down and remember what is important. Who is important. And it’s not me. It’s him. It’s being cognizantly aware of the sharp edges of each glass shard and how to carefully handle them as not to further break them into more pieces by my voice or my words. To one by one build up the trust as I help him see himself as a masterpiece of the Creator and not a broken piece of something that once was whole.

It’s giving myself and my precious one grace. Pure grace in the truest essence of the grace that I have been so lovingly given. It’s seeing my precious one for who he truly is, not what he does. Even in the moments he doesn’t know himself who he is, I must gently guide him and help put the pieces back together one by one. My hope is that one day he may, to the best of his ability, feel whole and not fragmented. Filled with the love and confidence of Christ and not broken by the shame, fear and mistrust of others. A healed child of God who’s reminiscent scars of these shards are only reminders rather than definers.

I’m no expert, and I certainly have much to learn in putting the pieces back together. But I’m so very grateful that we are not alone in this journey. And there I am reminded that I.He.We. have been redeemed by THE Great Physician who can heal all wounds and piece our broken shards back together into something even more beautiful than what it began.

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:17

How do you think we can help a precious one glue the broken shards back together?