We May Shatter

"We may shine, we may shatter,
We may be picking up the pieces here on after,
We are fragile, we are human,
We are shaped by the light we let through us,
We break fast, cause we are glass.
Cause we are glass."

These words from a recent song by Thompson Square have a haunting reality to them that strikes your soul. Life is fragile. We get broken. Things can change quickly. 

 

I was reminded of this yesterday morning when I glanced out the dining room window and thought I saw a pile of icy snow where I used to have a beautiful patio table. It had shattered into a million tiny clumps in the grass!

 

Apparently the wind had picked up the umbrella and spiked it through the glass table. Geesh. I only had it two weeks! The joy it gave in that brief time offset by sheer reality: things don’t last as long as I’d like them to.

How do you handle adversity or disappointment? How do you react when plans change and things go wrong? Unexpected winds arise. Hopes are dashed. There’s poop on the park bench. This is life and we shouldn’t be surprised. We’re surrounded with such prickly reminders that we are passing through this shadow land like a vapor.

We like being reminded about these things about as much as I’m going to like replacing that glass, but the stalwart James warned about the fleeting aspect of this temporal world. He compared our lives to a puff of smoke that we see for a brief time and then vanish out of sight—not meant to belittle, but a reality check to give us a glimpse of the heavenly perspective.  All this is brief and passing quickly.  Trying to hold onto this life is like holding water in the palm of your hand.

This is a little thing and we all know there are many greater concerns on the planet. I can throw up my hands and rant about how “life sucks” or peel back the curtain and ask, why do I feel this way? When life makes me mad and chafes my comfort zone I prove an inner yearning for something better. Wisdom prods to hope in God’s design like cowboys on a cattle drive.

 
When something breaks like the brakes on my car, I want things that will last! I want to feel safe.
When my boss turns out to be mean and mentally unstable, I want people who are fair and trustworthy and honest! When people disappoint, I want reliability. I want love and devotion reciprocated.  I ache for unconditional forever-kind-of-love, total forgiveness, and lasting peace.

I long for the day there will be no more cancer, addictions, abortion or trafficking. I’m tired of grieving. I crave joy!

Whatever happens, life reveals (often times like reverse photography) what I don’t want in stark relief to what I ultimately hope for, and it all comes down to a giant billboard for everything Jesus offers.

My little list of failures and let downs, broken parts and fragmented lives creates a wonderful abstract for the heaven of my dreams. There, every wrong will be made right. Every wound healed. Every hole filled. Sorrows erased. Tears will be dried.  

 
Father, help us hold lightly to things that don’t matter, like glass that shatters.

Loving God and people are all that matters.