I never understood why my mom would take the broken plate or the unmatched glass at dinner.
I certainly didn’t want them. I wanted what was pretty and matching and whole.
I’d scan around the table and end up placing the uglier wares at one of my sister’s settings — probably the sister I was most froggy and upset with that day.
But alas, the broken and mismatched ended up again at my mother’s seat.
I didn’t understand.
She loved lovely things.
She always made the house so nice and match-y.
Why would she do that?
Why would she take the things no one else wanted?
I didn’t understand until I was a mom, that that’s what we do:
We take the broken things into our space.
The broken
The tattered
The torn
And shattered
The aching
And breaking
Unfinished,
Unlovely things…
We take them
And treat them
And transmute them –
by turning them into something better.
We take the crying child
And kiss the owie
And turn the pain into a moment of love in the right now
And a lesson for the future.
That’s what we do.
Why?
Because we love
More than we want things to be pretty.
Love sees the pain
And love sees the beauty
And it knows how to find one in the other
and turn one into the other
So, that our children walk away less aware of the brokenness
And more aware of the love.
That’s what Love does.
It takes the brokenness
And makes it beautiful.
When my boys set the table, they avoid giving me the broken plates and mismatched glasses,
I would gladly take them, just like I did when they were little…
When they used to give it to their brother who they were unhappy with.
And I would switch and take the Ernie and Bert broken plate to eat my steak on.
I didn’t care.
I’d look into their eyes
And their happy smiles
And drink in their infectious giggles
While I sipped from the unmatched glass.
I used to take it for myself because I knew what mattered more.
But now, they take them for themselves.
They eat the bruises on the bananas
They kiss me on the forehead when I’m sick.
They love me and their dad in our unfinished places.
They know that it’s not the broken things that have the power
It’s the Love that wins
Because it’s the Love that loves
The Love that heals
And it’s the Love that is the true feast
No matter what kind of plate it’s served on.
And that’s because they know the power of Love lives in them.
Thanks, Mom, for taking the broken plates and mismatched glasses.
Thanks, God, for the opportunity to journey this life in miraculous and messy ways so that I could understand that the power lives in me and not the broken experiences that have happened to me.
Thanks, Caleb and Seth, for making me a mom who got to take, treat and turn around those broken times and circumstances so that I could see, show, and share the power of what lives in each one of us.
You are love.
I am love.
We are love.
“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget the perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen
