Stories of brokenness and love
I’m honoured to partner with Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree initiative because, like them, I believe every child’s story is deeply important.
For many of us and the children receiving Angel Tree gifts this Christmas, our stories are more complex and painful than we might want.
I was delighted when PF chose to include copies of one of my books, The Forgotten Palace, with some of the gifts this year, because at the heart of this book is a message that even brokenness can come to tell a beautiful story.
In a scene from the book, the main character Antimony gathers up the broken shards of a mirror and seeks to piece them back together. Frustrated he cannot fix the cracks, he converses with an enigmatic tinkerer:
“I thought piecing it all together would help, but… I don’t know how to get rid of all the cracks.”
“Perhaps getting rid of the cracks is not what you should be trying to do. I think it’s beautiful, even with the cracks. They may not have been there before – should never have been there really – but now they are there, the cracks tell a story.”
“What?” Antimony lifted his shoulders and let them fall again in a grumpy shrug. “A story of how it got broken and how I wasn’t able to fix it?”
The stranger didn’t reply. Instead, he lowered himself to sit cross-legged beside the mirror. Leaning forward, he ran his finger along one of the cracks. Where he touched, the mirror pieces beneath his fingers seemed to melt together. Antimony blinked in surprise. Where the fracture had been, a thin line of silver glowed with an ethereal brilliance.
“When all the pieces are put back together,” said the man, without looking up, “the cracks point to the one who cared enough to restore it.”
He raised his head and smiled at Antimony. “When I look at this mirror, I see how lovingly and patiently you have worked to mend it. These cracks are no longer a sign of brokenness but a sign of restoration.”
Once again, he dropped his gaze and continued his work, stroking each fractured edge to leave a path of glittering silver as the pieces joined together.
“Brokenness does not mean uselessness. It does not mean that the broken thing is worthless or that it is not treasured by someone. Why else do we mend things? We mend things because they are precious. We mend them because they are beautiful.” He looked up at Antimony again. “Because they are of great value.”
He paused before returning to his work. “Brokenness is not something to be afraid of, Antimony. Though cracks may be visible, they needn’t be ugly. Cracks need not be a sign of shame and worthlessness; they can be a sign of love and wholeness restored.”
“There will be times, Antimony, when you feel just as broken as these shards. When that happens, remember that you are not useless. You are deeply valuable. Anything that has been broken can be made whole again. Perhaps it won’t look as it did before, and the cracks might still show, but so will the love that restored it.”
May the power of God’s restorative love shine through the cracks of our lives and stories.
My prayer is that children receiving Angel Tree gifts this year might experience grace and love precisely in the parts of their story that feel most broken.
Will you join us this month in praying for those in prison and their families through the December Prayer Diary?
Luke Aylen is the author of the Adventures in Presadia book series.
Download the December Prayer Diary, with a prompt each day for how we can pray for our prisons and our ministries.
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