Put The Pieces Together Again

Some 25 years ago my friend and colleague, Lowell Linden, wrote a book entitled Through the Stained Glass Window. It’s daily devotional of sorts, filled with tender short stories created to get you thinking differently about life. Today’s was one such story. I believe it will touch a lot of right notes in us; especially now, in these trying and challenging days we are experiencing. 

Here's what he wrote:

​A man was trying to get some work done at home. He was also babysitting his five-year-old son. The boy’s father found a picture of the world in a magazine and tore out the picture. He preceded to tear the picture into small pieces. He said, “Look at this. Do you think you can put all the pieces together and make a picture of the world?” His father was certain it would take a great deal of time. 
 
In just a few minutes the little boy said, “Look daddy here's the picture of the world.” His father looked, and it was true. “It wasn't so hard,” answered the little boy. “On the other side was a picture of a man. So I put the man together. When I had the man right, I turned over the pieces and the world was right.” When we are right with God we are right with ourselves and we are right with the world. 

Illustration by Gary Waters / Science Source

I love the truth that is hidden in his story. When we are right with ourselves, there is hope for the world.
Each person that takes a step towards following this prescription for healing and restoration, the world is made right again - put back together, peice by peice. 

It starts with having faith in something greater than one's self. I'm not talking so much about faith in something out there and unknown, but believing that you already possess something inside.

That power, like you yourself, might seem broken or ripped to shreds, and it might be. But still, it's in you, and within your grasp to repair the damage. It's up to each one of us to make that choice, to step out into that faith. To see the broken pieces and know who or how they can go back together. 

In this time we are all experiencing something bigger than ourselves. It may feel like the world is tearing apart at the seams, and perhaps it is. But there is hope. That hope is in us. We have the power to start by putting ourselves back together, to heal our wounds and brokenness. And we can then use our story as a healing balm for the world.

Once we see our brokenness, and move to heal and restore it, we begin to see the wounds of others and can offer sympathy and grace, mercy and forgiveness, the love and healing balm that makes the world one again. 

Linden, Lowell. Through the Stained Glass Window. (Redlands, CA: self-published, 1995). p. 118.