When Brokenness Is Not the End of the Story

This is the last reflection in a series I’ve been writing called From Brokenness to Wholeness.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sitting with the image of that box of handmade pottery that arrived shattered in shipping… every piece cracked in some way.

It’s felt like a fitting metaphor for the ways life can fracture us.

We’ve named some of the ways life can fracture us—the brokenness of imperfection that tells me I’m not doing enough, the kind of emptiness that whispers I’m not enough,and the kind of suffering that comes whether I’m ready for it or not.

But now, as we celebrate Easter, I find myself wondering what becomes of all the broken pieces… and what kind of wholeness might still be possible without erasing the cracks.

On my Patio, with a Hammer

There I was, on my back patio, on a sunny July day, doing something I do not do.

There was newspaper spread out across the cement slab, small piles of broken pottery loosely sorted by color, a bag of cement nearby, and a mold waiting to be filled.

And in my hand… a hammer.

Even now, that image makes me laugh a little, because this is not my lane. I’m creative in thinking, sure. I can see ideas and connections and possibilities. 

But crafty? 

Not even a little. I do not do arts and crafts. They stress me out. The whole scrapbook craze that seemed to sweep through my generation? Hard pass. I am not a “maker.”

And when I have wandered into the world of projects and supplies because some creative impulse got the better of me, I usually lose steam pretty quickly. Once I realize how much patience, precision, or actual skill is required, I generally tap out.

But somehow, on that summer day, I stayed with it.

What to Do with the Broken Pieces

A few weeks earlier, a box had arrived in the mail.

Inside were broken mugs and bowls—pieces of something that had once been whole and useful and beautiful, now reduced to fragments. I remember how long I let that box sit before I could bring myself to do anything with it. Long enough for the disappointment to settle in. Long enough to feel sad about it. Long enough to think, more than once, Well… that’s a waste.

Then after several weeks, an idea came to me. Unexpected. Slightly weird. But clear enough that I couldn’t quite shake it.

What if I used the broken pieces to make stepping stones?

To this day, I don’t know exactly where that thought came from. It was not the kind of thing I would normally think of, much less commit to doing. But once it occurred to me, it felt strangely obvious.

The original pieces were gone. That much was true. But maybe that didn’t mean the story was over.

Maybe they could still become something.  Maybe even something worth sharing.

More Breaking Was Required

At first, the project seemed simple enough. Get a mold. Get some cement. Arrange the pieces into a design. Let them set.

Very beginner-friendly. Very “even I can probably manage this.”

But once I got started, I realized something I hadn’t expected.

The pieces were already broken… but they weren’t ready yet.

Many of them were still too big. Too clunky. Too awkward to fit into the new thing I was trying to make. So as much as it pained me, I had to pick up the hammer and break them again.

Not wildly. Not with full force. Not to shatter them into dust. Just enough to make them usable in a new way.

And I think that was the moment that stayed with me.

There was something almost too on-the-nose about it. Standing there with already-broken pieces in my hand, realizing that if they were going to become part of something new, more breaking would be required.

It didn’t feel inspiring in the moment. It felt inconvenient. A little sad, honestly. But it was also true.

So I kept going.

I broke the larger pieces into smaller ones. I sorted them roughly by color. I laid out designs on the newspaper before pressing them into the molds. I made four stepping stones in all—three as gifts, one for me. Some had crosses. Some had butterflies.

Nothing wildly impressive in the grand scheme of handmade artistry. But for me? It felt like a triumph.

Not just because I had finished a craft project, which was shocking enough. But because I knew, even then, that I was doing something more than making stepping stones.

I was finding a way through disappointment instead of staying stuck in it.

I was making room for new life from pieces I thought were only good for throwing away.

I was turning garbage into gifts.

Into Something New

When I look back on that story now, I think what moves me most is this: the goal was never to make the mugs into mugs again.

There was no undoing what had happened. No putting them neatly back together. No returning them to what they had been before they broke.

That was gone.

And strangely enough, I think that’s part of what Easter teaches us too.

Without getting too far into theological weeds, I think there’s a meaningful difference between resuscitation and resurrection. Jesus was not simply brought back to the same life he had been living before. He wasn’t restored to some untouched “before.”

He was resurrected into new life.  Wounds included.

Exactly what that means in all its fullness is for the theologians to unpack. But I think it means, at the very least, that resurrection is not about going back. It’s about being brought through death into something different. Something transformed.

And maybe that’s why Easter matters so much to our own human stories too.

Because so often, what we want when something breaks is a rewind. We want things put back the way they were. We want to go back to the version of life that felt easier, cleaner, less painful. We want the crack to disappear and the loss to be erased.

But that is not usually how healing works.

And it is not, I think, what wholeness really is.

Held Together by Something Stronger

For a long time, I thought of wholeness as a destination. A place I would arrive if I healed enough, learned enough, prayed enough, grew enough. A place where I would finally stop feeling fractured, stop struggling, stop bumping into the same old wounds or questions.

But life has not really worked that way.

There are always parts of life that feel unfinished, tender, uncertain, or broken. New disappointments come. Old insecurities or wounds resurface. Loss finds us again. We cycle through seasons of confidence and clarity and then, somehow, find ourselves back in more vulnerable territory than we expected.

So I don’t think brokenness and wholeness are two opposite places where we permanently live. I think they are part of a journey we move through again and again.

Maybe wholeness is not the absence of cracks.

Maybe it’s a deeper awareness, over time, that beneath all of it, we are still loved. Still good. Still valuable.

Not because we got everything right. Not because we’ve become polished or impressive or spiritually mature enough to earn it. But because nothing—not failure, not emptiness, not suffering, not our own messiest chapters—has the power to reduce what God has already declared true.  

That’s what I see in those stepping stones now.

The broken pieces didn’t disappear. Their edges didn’t vanish. Their story didn’t get erased. But they were no longer just scattered fragments in a box. They were held together by something stronger.

That changed everything.

Because when all I could see was the assortment of broken mugs and bowls, I felt consumed by disappointment, sadness, even guilt. But when I stepped back enough to imagine those same pieces set into something larger, I could suddenly see a horizon beyond the loss.

Hope entered the picture.

So did energy. And creativity. And possibility.

And that, I think, is much closer to what wholeness looks like.

Not fixing ourselves into perfection. Not pretending nothing hurts. But allowing what has been broken to be held in something stronger than the break itself.

Beauty That Can Be Walked On

I think one of the most meaningful parts of that whole story is that I didn’t just make mosaics or decorations. I made stepping stones.

There’s something about that that still gets me.

They were beautiful, yes. Better than I expected, honestly. But they were also useful. Solid. Meant to bear weight. Meant to be part of a path.

That feels important.

Because maybe the healing and hope we find in our own broken places is not just for us. Maybe over time, the things that once felt like the most painful or disappointing parts of our story become places of compassion, connection, and even service.

Maybe they become the very places where we can meet someone else with more tenderness, more honesty, more grace.

Not because we have it all figured out. Not because we’ve transcended suffering and become wise, glowing humans with no issues. But because we know something now that we didn’t know before.

We know what it is to carry broken pieces.  And maybe, if we let God work with them long enough, those same pieces become gifts.

They deepen our trust.

They make us gentler with other people.

They remind us how much we need each other.

And sometimes, if we’re willing to share honestly, they even become stepping stones for someone else who is trying to find their way.

Because We Need Resurrection Again

I think that’s part of why I’m grateful Easter comes every year.

Not just because it gives us a chance to remember what Christ has done, though of course it does. But because every year, in some new way, we need resurrection again.

We need to be reminded that what feels dead is not necessarily gone forever. That what feels broken is not beyond redemption. That the story is still unfolding, even when we can’t yet see the shape of what’s being made or the pattern that’s emerging.

And maybe that’s the invitation of Easter—not to pretend everything is fine, not to force a happy ending, and not to rush ourselves into some polished version of hope.

Maybe it’s simply to trust that God does not waste the broken pieces.

He sets them in something stronger.

He brings new life not by erasing what has been, but by transforming it. By holding it. By making something unexpectedly beautiful, and sometimes even useful, from what once looked like loss.

I actually have more than one of those stepping stones now. Two of the ones I originally gave away have made their way back to our family after the deaths of two of my aunts. And if I’m honest, there’s something tender about that too—knowing there may come a day when all four are back with me.

Even the transformed things in our lives may be broken open again.  And still, that may not be the end of the story.

For now, they live outside, where they get walked on and weathered and left out in the elements. They were made from broken pottery, but they’re not fragile anymore.

They’re part of a path.

And maybe that’s as good a picture of wholeness as any.

Not a perfect life. Not a life without cracks. Not a life that has been restored to some untouched original state.

Just a life that, little by little, has been gathered up and set in something stronger.

And maybe that is enough to wonder:

What if the brokenness is not the end of the story?

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