Complicated Hope

It’s silly, really.  These tears running down my cheeks.

It was merely a bump of the hip.  The magnetic board that normally hangs above my desk had slipped off the hangars last week and was leaning against my desk.  Time had not allowed it to be hung again.  One bump and my chair rolled into the board sending it crashing on the tile.  Then the familiar crack of breaking ceramic.

The tears started.  I knew immediately what was broken.

A simple sign that has hung in my office since I began teaching my children at home.  It was on my desk at home when I worked for the school system.  I am not even sure where I acquired the little sign or how long it had been in my possession.

For years it asked, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

How silly to cry over a cheap ceramic sign with no sentimental origins.  I took a picture.  As I gently swept up the bits and pieces, my heart began to wonder to all the things I have already done and all the things yet to be accomplished in my life.  Things I’ve failed at and things I’ve barely succeeded at;  things I’ve loved doing and jobs I’ve just tolerated;  friends I’ve made and friends I miss dearly;  and fear.  The fear of what this next season holds.  So many unknowns.

Broken.

It takes the broken to move us forward at times.  Broken relationships that make us move forward.  Broken dreams that make us seek new paths.  Broken bodies that make us rest.  Broken spirits that force us to look to God alone for strength.

Broken signs that point us to the future.

 “God is near the brokenhearted,” Psalms 34:18.

Broken is beautiful.  We live in a broken world.  We have broken bodies.  We have broken relationships.

Broken is close to God.

I think I will sit with my broken little sign.  Maybe cry a bit more.  Maybe grieve the brokenness.  Then allow my Father to heal the broken.

Then I shall look to the future.