"Going once, going twice, sold for
$7,000.00!" the auctioneer said right before his gavel hit the table. Rita
Coors was elated. She'd just purchased a porcelain mask, hand painted by John
Denver. She couldn't wait to hold it in
her hands. As the auctioneer at the 1997 Charity Celebrity Ball for Hospice of
Metropolitan Denver handed her the mask, it slipped through her fingers and
shattered into a million pieces on the floor.
She didn't demand her money back or abandon the broken piece of art.
Instead, Mrs. Coors picked up the pieces and took them home with her. Later she
decided to place the broken pieces around a collection of John Denver
photographs. She made something beautiful out of the accident. Now she not only
had a souvenir from a celebrity, but a story to tell too. Brokenness isn't unusual. Life often slips
through our fingers and shatters at our feet. When it does, the best thing we
can do is pick up the pieces and make something beautiful out of it, and then
be willing to share the story with others who've been shattered too.”*
Perhaps you have stood (or are currently standing)
where this woman stood, with something of great value to you lying in shattered
pieces at your feet. Maybe a marriage, a
family, a career, a life goal of some sort -- something into which you had
invested so much and for which you had so much hope. But now it’s irreparably broken with no hope
of it ever being what it once was. What
then? It seems to me that there are
basically two options. You can let the
brokenness defeat you or you can pick up the pieces and begin to build
something else of value. This isn’t to
make light of your loss. Be sure to make
room to grieve the brokenness but be careful of letting it define you. Jesus died so that brokenness doesn’t have to
be the end of your story.
Mike
*Leadership Journal, Winter 2001, p. 40 Illustration
by Jim L. Wilson
No comments:
Post a Comment