Ripped Pages, Ripped Souls

My little girl has recently been tempted greatly to tear book pages. (yes, this is why someone invented board books). She’s not trying to be destructive (at least most of the time). But she tears anyway – and then once it is started, it is hard to stop the tear – and so, it slices long and sad across the page.

So, at naptime or while she is busily engaged destroying something more acceptable (towers of blocks for instance), I sit down with my tape and repair. With careful fingers, I realign the roughened edges. I smooth the stretches of tape over the front of the rip, the back and sometimes an extra fold on the page edge. Of course, by the time I sit down to do this, there’s generally more than one rip that needs to be repaired. When I’ve finished the tedious job, I place the book back on the shelf, ready to meet its precarious but exuberant world of a rambunctious 4 year old and 2 year old.

I observed something as I looked at those rips. When I turn the pages of the book, there are many rips now, sometimes obvious, sometimes only seen when I specifically search for them. And yet, as I hold the page in my fingers, I realize – the part that was torn and put back together is now the strongest part of the page.

And it struck me that this is what God does to us.

We come to him, battered by life, marred by sin, torn by hurt. We hand him the shattered pieces. And he sits with us and gently, lovingly puts us back together. Sometimes, we look a little different – the scars are more obvious. We may need to be reshaped or reinforced. Sometimes the greatest changes He makes are invisible ones, seen only by His eyes and our own, deep within our souls. But the places He touched with His hands, that He healed with his love – they are held together by the strongest threads – because they were bound by His hands, not our own.

May we, like my sweet little girl, ever seek to hand our Father our broken pieces.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. ~ Psalm 34:18

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
~ Psalm 51:17

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. ~ Psalm 147:3

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Photo (with inserted scripture) by Ramin Khatibi on Unsplash