I was driving Friday night in the rainstorm when a rock hit my windshield. CRACK! An instant puncture the size of a quarter shot the center of the glass. Slowly the veins of the star-burst crevice grew outwards in a wave. By the time I got home the hairline fracture had nearly spread across the entire window. I shook my head with defeat at the irony. I had just brought my truck in the shop that morning to have the passenger door buffed after a little boy (I won't name names) scratched his name in the side of the panel with a nail.
My beautiful, clean truck again in need of repair. I can't keep up.
Then I thought about Nichole. I don't really know her. We actually met this week via email and by phone last night. Her world was shattered last month when her husband of nine years suddenly died without explanation of cause. Her heart is heaving with a fracture so fine that many cannot understand how its infinite pain spreads. She is twelve weeks pregnant with their first child after years of trying. Where can she go to fix any of this?
My sister recently broke up with her boyfriend. The guy we all thought was "the one." She emailed me today that she hit a pole with her car while backing up and put a large scratch on the fender. She thought about my windshield and calmed herself saying, "It can get fixed eventually…it's not the end of the world."
Then she wrote, "I wish I could do that for my heart. Just bring it
in for a few hundred dollars and they can fix it."
I'm praying for Nichole tonight. I'm praying for my sister. I don't even know what words I'm using. I just know God is in the business of restoration. So I'm offering him the shattered pieces, hoping he can work with that.