How does one move forward when things break?

The plate sat high upon a surface in our kitchen. Precarious, yes, though I did not consider it dangerous . . . until it fell. The height and the impact of the fall caused the plate to break, and thankfully it did not break any member of our family along with it.

Because of the ceramic thickness, it did not shatter, it just broke into a handful of pieces that I was confident I could glue back together when the time was right.

I set the pieces carefully on the top shelf of our foyer closet.

That was two years ago.

About a year after the plate broke, I got it down from the shelf and kind of puzzled the pieces on the floor to see how they would all fit together again.

I gasped. The way it broke was chilling. And achingly meaningful. In that moment, I knew I would never be able to fix it.

Two years after the breaking, I realized it is not safe to keep shards of broken ceramic in the top of the closet. It is not safe physically, and – for me – emotionally.

I had to once and for all come to grips with the fact that I could not repair the plate, despite the deep desires and intentions of my heart to do so. And no matter how long I let it sit there, the time that passed would not make it any easier to reassemble.

So, how does one move forward when things break?

I believe God gives momentum to our footsteps forward when we are willing to surrender it all to Him and to trust Him with each of the broken parts.

Psalm 139:3 (NKJV) says, “You comprehend my path…”

My footnote says that the literal word for “comprehend” is “winnow”, which means “to sort or clear”.

God, You literally clear my path, and You sort through the rubble, the overwhelm, and the weight of all of the confusion and sadness.

You do not ask me to sort through it all and seek to make sense of it.

You simply ask me to surrender the broken pieces to You and to trust You with every sliver and shard.

In all of my Humpty Dumpty humbling and fumbling through the debris, I must be willing to hand it all over to the King to fix.

Only He can.

For me, it meant I had to remove the broken plate from the top of our closet and carefully discard the pieces. I did so with prayer and sorrow. And then relief that physical remnants of the burden were gone.

But as we wait for the final reassembling and redemption of all the broken things, we can joyfully surrender the shards of these shadowlands to the King and peacefully rest in His trustworthiness.

Believing that He will, indeed, make all things beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and in His time, He will make all things new (Revelation 21:5).

In the twinkling of an eye, brilliant rays of sun will crest the horizon and dawn on Forever . . . and all will be well.

When things break, our Heavenly Father invites us to surrender, to trust, and to wait for Him with hope.