Things break. What matters is what we do with the pieces

He sped his brand new remote control car into a tree and the wheel broke. He threw a water bottle at a shelf in my office and a statue cracked. He launched a wooden plane across our living room and a glass decoration shattered. And all of this shocks him. Each time he comes right to me holding out these broken things. I didn’t know that was going to happen, he insists, I didn’t mean for it to break! Can you fix it?

Yes, that’s me, the fixer of broken things. It’s in my job description: And she will fix remote control cars that crash into trees, a million statues with broken necks and Legos with crooked pieces. She will clean up shards of glass at the speed of lightning and patch holes in any wall. And they will call her mother of boys.

Because really. Such is life. Things break. And you’d think that after all of these years I would be used to it.

But the breaking still undoes me. The crash and the turn; the look of panic that covers the face of the guilty kid. Why do they never see it coming?I’m certain that I do. I always see it coming.

I am the mom. Armed with super glue and Lysol wipes my hope is built on nothing less than my ability to put all things back together again and keep life moving forward.

But then on a Tuesday in the middle of dinner chaos, I drop an entire carton of eggs at my feet. The slimy yellow yolks bond with tiny shell fragments and form a river that traps me in my place. It happens in slow motion, and I realize I might have this all wrong. I know there is no use crying over spilled milk. But, is it okay to cry over broken eggs?

Who’s going to pick up these pieces? Who’s coming to clean up my mess? Where is the fixer of all my broken things? The silence is deafening.

It’s all up to you, my brain insists. You have to do it all. And be it all. And smile while you’re at it. This is all your fault and now you’re going to have to make it right again.

That is the lie I believe about everything. It. Is. All. Up. To. Me.  And maybe we all believe it to some extent.

When my children break something, they know exactly where to go. They hold up the pieces, carry in the mess and hand it right to me. I didn’t know it was going to break. Can you fix it?

But what about you and me? We are grown up people. Where do we take our broken things?

Because the truth is this. Real life can hand us brokenness that weighs more than busted toys and shattered tree ornaments. What about that relationship you just can’t get right, the kid who won’t listen, the job you can’t figure out and the way your one wild and precious life isn’t working out like you thought it would?

I clean the floor and throw out the eggs. And it is Mary Oliver’s quote that won’t get out of my head. She asks this question in her poem The Summer Day. “Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I love that quote and that poem, but if I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure I get the answer wrong.

What am I going to do with this life? Well, I’m a mother of boys; so I’m going to fix it.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise.” David’s words from the book of Psalms whisper in the back of my head as if to challenge my answer. Does God require me to always be able to fix what is broken?

The boys call for me in the other room. “Mom! Mom!”

And I hear another Old Testament verse wind its way through my brain. “Rend your hearts; not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

And rend is a strange word. It means to break and to tear apart. Broken hearts? Broken spirits? I don’t want to give God broken things. I don’t want to come before my Creator with evidence of things gone wrong. I want to show him the good, the shiny, the display of how amazing I am at holding things together.

I follow the voices of my children. Sheepishly they place the broken remote right in my hands. Batteries, I tell them and point them in the direction of the kitchen drawer.

Like that. Jesus whispers over the chaos and the still fresh smell of raw eggs. Hand it over just like that. Your broken heart, your broken day, your busted up choices and heartache. Lift it up and let me see it. Seek me. Ask me. A Savior is what you need not your own strength.

“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” (Jonah 2:8). I might be able to fix lots of broken toys, but I am not the fixer of all the things. And neither are you. What if we could learn that grace is found when we simply loosen our grip and hand over what is broken? What if we could trust that Jesus can handle it?

We might be shocked at how our one wild and precious life is much better lived broken in his presence than perfectly held together and hidden in the shadows.

Eugene Peterson writes in his book Leap Over a Wall, “There is nothing. Absolutely nothing that God can’t and doesn’t use to work his salvation and holiness into our lives.”

Even the broken things. Restoring broken things is what he does best of all. We just have to hand them over.

“And God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times having everything you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).