Words by Stephen Aycock | Image by Ryan McGill
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” – Psalm 34:18
Many may say that those who have lost loved ones are broken, but they have it all wrong.
Broken things can be fixed. “Broken” implies that with a little time and a small amount of patience, the pieces will gradually fall back into place and once again create a whole. It is a comfortable assumption to say we are broken, because unless you look closely, you’ll never see the deep cracks we try so desperately to hide.
But we are more than broken. We are shattered.
The shards created by losing one we love will not be put back into place and create a whole ever again; how can our hearts ever be mended when they are now in a thousand pieces that have lost their meaning with one another? There is no glue to hold, no ties that bind, only splinters that find their way ever deeper into our hearts with every birthday, Christmas, and anniversary of their death that passes.
The shattered do not heal, we live on through the pain. We smile when light is cast upon us but show our true selves in the darkness of our own light attempting to leave us.
But for the shattered, there is hope. Though we cannot fix ourselves, the Lord God knows our pain, it is a special kinship we share. As we kneel in desperation and cry out in the darkness, we can feel the warmth of His hands linger around our fragmented hearts. He is the great potter, the one that formed us from clay, who can restore His creation. He knew us in the womb and now comforts us in our torment. He knows we will never be what we once were, but also knows how to make us what we were meant to be. WL
