I have this bad habit of tucking things into drawers when they are broken. I often don’t have the time or desire to deal with them when they break, and I don’t want to look at them laying around, so I shut them up in drawers. Then, when I am looking for something, I open up a drawer and find little bits and pieces of things that were once lovely and whole, but are now just shards of their former loveliness. They are just part of what they used to be. Oh, I might think about them and wish I had time to fix them, but I usually don’t. I never find a lot of time to dwell on the things that have been broken in the past.
Last month though, my priorities changed. Suddenly, I was at home every day and, while life is busy, it is also slower and quieter. Like I always do, I opened up a drawer and found some broken toys and, instead of shutting them up in the drawer again, I pulled them out and lined them up for my husband to fix.
As I was lining up the broken parts to be fixed I was hit with an idea that resonated right through me. Just as these toys could not get fixed until life quieted down around us, so too I cannot be fixed until I rest in the quietness of God’s peace that we have through His great love and mercy.
Psalm 23:1-3a says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.” The NIV version of these verses says, “He leads me beside quiet waters.” It is when we experience quiet in our lives that we begin to feel the healing touch of God’s grace. That is not to say that God cannot heal us of our hurts and brokenness wherever we are, but true restoration begins when we take the time to lie quietly in the green pastures located beside the still waters. It begins when we acknowledge how truly broken we really are.
We all need God’s restoration. We are all missing parts that only He can replace. Instead of reaching out to our loving Father in our brokenness we often hide ourselves away, just like I tucked all the broken pieces away in drawers. When we recognize our brokenness and hurt and sit in the stillness and peace which only God can offer, He takes the shards of our shattered lives and makes us whole again.
That was beautiful, Marcy! I know that God has shown me some places I didn’t even think were broken and reminded me of things He had previously fixed that needed to stay that way! It has been hard to stay quiet when it seems all we have worked for is falling to pieces, but the Savior is relentless in leading me to the quiet places. Thank you for writing this!