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.
.................. **Due to the personal nature of some of the blog posts, and our desire to share freely with you, the blog portion of our website is limited to pastors’ wives who have registered with us. If you are an existing user, please log in. New users may register below. Before signing up below, go to your email account and add “info@smalltownpastorswives.com” to your contacts. This way, our emails containing registration info are less likely to go to your spam folder. Fill out the form below and submit. Check your email account for an email from us! Once we approve your registration, you will receive an email with your username and password. You will then be able to access the blog posts.**
Comments are closed.