When Life is in Pieces

 Have you ever needed a reset?  Have you ever needed to re-group?  Have you ever needed to pick up the pieces of your life?  Recently, after hearing a sermon about the feeding of the five thousand, I was reminded of a time when Luke 6:12 spoke directly to the pieces of my eighteen-year-old self.  

     Like many of my peers, graduating from high school, I mapped out what I thought was the perfect plan for my life.  I would go to Oral Roberts University, study pre-med, attend med school and serve the Lord with my skills as a physician.  That tidy plan was shattered into little pieces by my father’s cancer diagnosis, surgery, and the mounting medical bills that made it impossible to pay out-of-state tuition.  So, in the second semester of my freshman year, I sadly left ORU and transferred to Northern Arizona University. I needed to be closer to my parents and avoid those extra tuition costs.  Life just went downhill from there, or so it seemed.  My roommate had a drinking problem and then suffered a tubular pregnancy that nearly took her life.  She left in mid-semester to recover at home.  I no longer had to listen to her monologues when she was under the influence, but I was also very lonely.  I had not built the relationships the other students had because I had showed up on campus mid-year.  I hadn’t planned to be stuck at NAU, feeling isolated, and struggling with the anxiety that comes when a parent receives a terminal diagnosis.

    I also had not planned for God to show up the way he did early one Sunday morning in March.  I was reading the Bible about the feeding of the five thousand when Jesus’ final direction to the disciples seemed to leap off the page.

When they were all satisfied, Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces that are left over, so that nothing is wasted.”
John 6:12 (NET)

     I took God at His word.  I wrote about all my broken pieces then offered my hastily scribbled paper up to the Lord.  I prayed, “Dear God, I am putting my broken pieces in Your basket.  Please multiply these broken bits into something useful.  I don’t want any part of this current experience wasted.  Here’s what is left of me, Father.  Please glue me back together.  Amen.”

Anxiety seemed to drain out of me, replaced by the first peace I had felt in a very long time.

My Abba was there with me in that dorm room.  I sat quietly just breathing in His peace.

   The moment my quiet time was over, the phone rang.  A kind and committed Christian guy I had met at ORU was driving through Flagstaff, returning to Tulsa after spring break.  He asked if he could stop by my dorm because his fiancé had just broken up with him.  She didn’t want to be a pastor’s wife and was devastated by the news that he wanted to go to seminary.  When he arrived, I shared the Scripture that God had given me that morning, and he, too, offered his own broken pieces to God.  That commons room at the dorm became a holy place as we prayed together.  God’s presence was palpable to both of us.  We invited God into our current struggle, offered Him our broken pieces, then simply sat there, basking in His presence, letting God carry our burden of hurt and anxiety.

    Hearing Pastor Matt’s sermon reminded me that the moment we recognize God’s presence, our current challenges fade from view and lose their power to define us.  God is right here, right now, even as we look at the pieces of our lives scattered around us.  He does not ask us to pretend they are not there.  He does not ask us to suppress our emotions about them.  He asks us to “gather the pieces that remain,” so that nothing about what has happened to us is wasted.  He enters into our struggle and says, in effect, “Daddy’s here.”

     What pieces do you need to gather?  How are you feeling about them right now? Invite your loving Daddy-God into your equation.  Name your pieces, pick them up, and offer them to God. Ask Him to multiply what is left of you.  Thank Him for not wasting an atom of your past, your present, and your future.  Sit quietly with Him and rest your weary head, trusting God not to forget or mislay a single part of who you are and what your heart needs.  Don’t worry about all those sherds and shards, because Jesus is the One who holds all of life’s bits together.

16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
  [Col 1:16-17 NIV]

Prayer:

     Dear Abby, my Daddy-God, here is a list of my broken pieces.  I am giving them to you right now.  I don’t want to waste this experience, Father.  Teach me how to be “strong at the broken places.”  Glue me back together, Abba.  Multiply what is left of me so that I can take Your love and give it away to others who are dealing with their own broken pieces.  Amen.