When Life Shatters Anyway
This reflection is part of a Lenten series I’m 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.
First, the brokenness of imperfection that tells me I’m not doing enough.
Then, the kind of emptiness that whispers I’m not enough.
But this week… I’ve been thinking about a different kind of brokenness.
The kind we don’t choose.
The kind that doesn’t come from striving or comparing…
but from loss. From grief. From life shattering anyway.
All My Broken Pieces
My prayer life has ups and downs and plenty of dry spells. But once in a while, something breaks through—
not words, but images.
Moments that feel… given more than created.
I remember this one vividly. It came to me early in 2018. My journal holds the story.
I’m sitting on the floor. Small. Almost child-like.
Surrounded by broken pieces.
Of what? A doll? A toy?
My life.
All my broken pieces.
I know—even in the moment—that not everything is broken.
That I am not all broken.
But it feels like it.
I’m frustrated. Irritated. Sad. Tired. Overwhelmed.
There are pieces of things I care about scattered all around me. And I don’t know what to do with them. I just sit and look at them. Every so often, I pick one up. Look at it. Hold it. Feel sad. Put it down.
Pick up another.
And another.
I don’t know what else to do with all my broken pieces.
And then… Jesus comes and sits down next to me.
He doesn’t fix anything.
He doesn’t say anything.
He just sits there with me. Looking at all my broken pieces with me. Feeling sad with me.
When Broken Becomes Shattered
At the time, things were already hard. But they would get harder.
Losses started stacking.
Things I loved. People I loved.
Parts of my life that once felt steady… didn’t anymore. Every part of my life was touched somehow.
And what had felt broken now felt… shattered.
All my broken pieces… is still my refrain. Now more than ever. I thought things felt broken before. Apparently that was just a premonition of things to come.
Now there are even more pieces, and they feel more shattered than broken.
Jesus, please hold my broken pieces.
Pressing the Pain Into His Hand
There was another moment—not long after—when that same image returned.
Again, I’m sitting on the floor with all the pieces.
And again, He’s there beside me.
But this time, I’m watching Him.
Waiting. Expectantly… maybe impatiently.
Waiting for Him to do something.
To say something.
To make it better.
And when He doesn’t… something in me shifts.
I start picking up the pieces more insistently now. Turning them over. Setting them down harder than before. Until finally, I take one—sharp, jagged—and press it into His palm.
Hard enough that He would feel it.
As if to say,
Don’t you feel how painful this is?
Don’t you want to do more about this?
And He takes my hand… gently.
And presses something into my palm.
A piece of host.
Jagged. Broken.
Strikingly similar in shape.
As if to say,
“I do.”
“I have.”
He Knows This Kind of Pain
These are days in our spiritual lives when we’re invited to slow down and remember.
To remember a body broken.
A love poured out.
A story that doesn’t turn away from suffering—but walks straight into it.
Not as an idea.
Not as a metaphor.
But in flesh.
In betrayal.
In abandonment.
In pain that is not avoided or explained away.
Jesus doesn’t just sit with brokenness.
He knows it.
He chose to endure it.
Because of love.
Climbing Into the Box
The months that followed are hard to separate out now.
Grief will do that. So will depression.
It’s difficult to say where one loss ended and another began. Only that everything felt heavy. And everything felt blurred.
At some point, I stopped sitting on the floor.
Not because things were better.
But because I chose to climb into the pile.
Early on, I’d needed to box up my broken pieces just so that I could do the next thing or show up for someone who needed me.
Eventually, instead of unpacking the box, I decided to just hide in it.
I climbed into my box of my broken pieces and put the lid on tight.
It felt easier to cling to the losses and hold the pain close.
Lifted Out of the Box
Eventually, I went on retreat. Limped or crawled into a retreat might be a better description.
I knew I needed to heal. I wasn’t sure it could actually happen, but I didn’t know what else to try.
And there, the scene shifted.
It started right where I was – in the box.
It’s dark, and confined, and hard to breathe. It’s uncomfortable. There’s nowhere to comfortably position myself and pieces keep poking into me.
I want out.
God, you come and open the lid. Fresh air rushes in and I can breathe cooler, cleaner air.
You pick me up and lift me up out of the box.
Then we dump out all my broken pieces together.
All different shapes, sizes, colors.
There’s no way that they can all be put back together again.
Some are shattered.
And I look at you and ask: “What are we going to do with all my broken pieces?”
You put your arm around me and say,
“Remember when you made the mosaic stepping stones?”
Not Alone Anymore
It wasn’t a solution.
It didn’t put anything back the way it was.
I didn’t leave that retreat “healed.”
Not all at once.
But something shifted.
Not in the pieces.
But in how they were being held.
When I think back to that image on the floor…
The pieces are still there.
Some of them still don’t make sense.
Some of them never will.
But I don’t see myself sitting there alone anymore. I’m with someone who truly understands - because he’s suffered, too.
What if the most important thing, in the middle of suffering, isn’t figuring out what to do with all the broken pieces…
but not being alone with them?
Next week, we turn toward Easter.
Toward the question of what becomes of all these broken pieces… Not a return to what was. But the possibility of something made new.
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