Broken Pieces
"Save us, O LORD our God & gather us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name & glory in your praise."
Psalm 106:47 (NIV)
When Bruce and I were newlyweds in 1975, he bought me three ceramic Christmas angels as mementos from our honeymoon trip to Gatlinburg. Each Christmas when I set the angels out in our living room, I'd remember where we were when we bought them. Not just where we were physically in Tennessee, but where we were in life- at the beginning of our life together, before jobs, careers, children, and special-needs parenting took an unexpected toll on both of us.
One December day when James Bruce was eleven years old, I took the angels from my china cabinet and put them on a living room table exactly as I had done for the last twenty years. About 5 o'clock that evening, the telephone rang while I was cooking supper. Suddenly there was a loud crash from the back of the house. I hurriedly ended my phone conversation and went running to make sure everyone was okay. I thought one of the boys had accidentally broken a lamp or something. I was praying that no one was hurt until I saw what had happened. The three Christmas angels lay shattered and scattered across the floor of our oldest son’s bedroom. James Bruce stood there with his hands over his ears screaming repeatedly: "Mama! Mama!" He knew he was in trouble.
Angrily, I told him to go get on his bed. I quickly began gathering the broken pieces, trying vainly to put the angels back together, and knowing that they were beyond repair. Sobbing, I angrily cried out to God in grief and pain, "This is just like my life. It's in pieces. You don't care and it's not fair! We didn't ask for this and we don't deserve it!"
I continued cleaning up the mess and headed toward the kitchen sobbing as I carried a dustpan of angel fragments. As I passed the younger boys' room, I heard James Bruce singing softly, but clearly, from his bottom bunk bed. The song was one of his favorites, Twila Paris’ God is in Control.
God is in control; We believe that His children will not be forsaken
God is in control; We will choose to remember and never be shaken
There is no power above or beside Him we know
God is in control.
Instantly I knew that God was using the Holy Spirit and James Bruce to meet me exactly where I was- in the stress, mess, and chronic sorrow of life with a special-needs child. God in his grace was gently reminding me that He is in control and I am not!
This incident eventually provided the inspiration for my first published article. Somehow God used the actual writing process to help me begin gathering some of our broken pieces. Jesus’ words recorded in John 6:12, "Gather up the pieces that nothing will be lost,” encouraged me to keep gathering, writing, and trusting God to use our suffering for His glory. Through the years we’ve experienced many more broken pieces that need to be gathered and given back to God.
"Gathering" is not just a biblical command; it's a sacred echo throughout Scripture. Today's verse teaches us several important truths concerning the Kingdom of God gathering process:
God gathers and commands us to do the same.
Gratitude is an integral part of the gathering process.
God's glory is the ultimate goal of our gathering.
The kingdom paradigm for gathering our broken pieces looks like this: Gather; Give Thanks; for God's glory
The net result is that as we in obedience gather our broken pieces, God gathers us. Only God can use division for multiplication, taking that which is broken and using it for both our good and His glory. Jesus once said, "He who does not gather with me scatters." Matthew 12:30 (NIV)
None of us will ever know this side of heaven how God chooses to use and multiply what we are willing to gather and give Him. God is God and we are not. We do ourselves a great disservice by putting God in a box and attempting to limit what He uses and how He uses it. Our job is simply to gather our broken pieces and give them to God. It's His job to use them. And He often uses those pieces in ways that we couldn't have begun to imagine.
This week I’ll be traveling to Nebraska to lead a weekend women’s retreat and speaking on “God’s Sovereignty in Our Suffering.” It’s another opportunity to gather and give for His glory. Twila Paris and James Bruce were both right on that afternoon almost thirty years ago: God is in control!