Like One Being Taught

In an Instant: Broken Bowls, Broken Lives I am a clock person. I watch my time rather carefully and have an obsession about not being late. I have my morning routine down to the minute, calculating how long it takes me for my devotions, to shower, and to have something to eat. Depending on what time I need to be out the door, I adjust my start time forward or backward. A day not too long ago was like any other day. I was down to the last twelve minutes before departure—just enough time for me to grab a bowl of cereal. Everything was on schedule until I took my bowl from the cabinet and placed it on the counter. I bumped it as I turned, and it flew off the counter to the hard tile floor below. There, in an instant, that pretty, smooth white bowl was shattered into what must have been a hundred pieces. The clock stopped, and I had to stop and clean up the mess. As I swept and re-swept the kitchen floor to get ever sliver of glass, I was reminded of how fragile life can be. One minute everything can be sailing along fine, and in the next, a life can be shattered unexpectedly. There’s a phone call, an accident, a death. A doctor’s appointment and the word is cancer. A sudden stroke, a failed marriage, a lost job—life can be changed in an instant. Everything stops. All attention has to be refocused. Life is changed forever as we struggle to pick up the pieces. In many cases, the pieces cannot be rejoined or repaired. Life takes on a new normal. What we had will no longer be. My bowl was broken and gone forever. I realized this should not surprise those of us who read the Bible. We are told throughout the Scriptures there will be trials. This life is short, and it will soon pass away. In fact, 1 Peter 4:12 begins that way: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening.” Life on this earth has no guarantees. What clock-stopping moments have you faced? What bowl-shattering events have you had to live with? Have you had to refocus? Are you still trying to sweep up the pieces? The good news is that there is one who specializes in fixing broken bowls and broken lives, Jesus. He was broken for us on the cross when He died, but He rose again from the dead, brand new. He is able to do the same for us. We will no longer be a pile of shattered pieces; we can be a new creation. The Bible tells many stories of Jesus giving new life. They were the prostitutes, the thieves, and the outcasts of their society, but He showed them love and made them new. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ [Jesus] he is a new creation; the old has gone the new has come.” And the Old Testament book of Ezekiel 36:25–26 says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean … I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” One that is new and alive! A second chance, born again, a new creation! Is it possible? Not only is it possible, but it is imperative. Jesus said, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”(John 3:3) How are we born again? By giving over our broken, dirty, shattered lives to Jesus and asking Him to make them new. We must admit we can’t fix ourselves on our own. We must be willing to let Him wash us, cleanse us, and make us whole. For those of us who have already given our lives to Christ but still find ourselves going through broken times, we are reminded His promises remain sure that “the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (1 Peter 5:10–11). He will put the broken parts back together. To Him be the power and glory forever and ever! He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24 Mary Jane Her name was Mary Jane. She was in my class at school. We all had one. She was the girl no one wanted to sit by, the one who was always picked last for kickball, and the one you hoped didn’t get your name for the Christmas gift drawing. She came to school in what seemed to be the same dress almost every day. It was dirty, stained, and in need of repair. Her hair was uncombed and often matted. I recall thinking, “If she would only take a bath and wash her hair, she wouldn’t smell so bad.” She was often left out and was the frequent recipient of cruel comments by classmates. Can you say “cooties”? I remember riding by her house once on my bike. To my ten-year-old mind it was a curiosity. The yard was scuffed bare, dirty, with no green grass on which to play. The door stood wide open; the screen was in disrepair. A broken-down car with a flat tire was in the driveway. Several younger children played unsupervised, dressed only in diapers and dirt. Only recently have I been able to look back with eyes of compassion and discernment, which I did not have as a child. I pray now, “Lord, forgive me.” Forgive me, for even though I may never have been verbally cruel or intentionally mean, (as some were) I was as guilty as the rest of the class by shunning her. I never asked her to play with me. I never picked her for my team. I never offered to be her partner or help her with her homework. Seeing things more clearly now through Christ’s eyes, I see she was only a child—just like me. And I was like her except that I had been blessed. I had a mother who said, “Wash your face. Brush your hair. You can’t wear that; it’s dirty!” I had a father who fixed screen doors and changed flat tires. I had parents who cared and kept our home neat and clean. She obviously did not have those advantages. I do not know her true situation or whether or not her parents were there. Perhaps they were, but may have been absent in her life through drugs, alcohol, or other unknown factors. Looking back, I would like to say, “I’m sorry, Mary Jane; I didn’t know. I didn’t know what pain you might have been living through every day before you came to school.” I can’t go back and be a better friend to Mary Jane, but God has provided for me new opportunities. I can be the one willing to sit by the homeless man on the bus. I can be the nurse willing to go into the dirty home with the broken screen door, and I can be the one to offer care in the name of Jesus to those behind prison bars. What about you? Do you remember Mary Jane? “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” The King will reply, “Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:35, 36, 40