Broken Pieces

My ten year old son, Landry, is an old soul in a young body.  He loves “old” things from prior generations – music, TV, movies, pop culture, sports history, American history, and many other sorts of history.  I’ve often said that he was born a century too late.

Lucky for Landry, my mother-in-law has saved various articles of clothing, toys, and other items that belonged to Landry’s dad and uncle when they were children.  Landry loves looking through this collection of old things every time he visits his grandmother, and he often brings home a piece of it for his collection!

One of the items Landry brought home once was an orange, Snoopy lunchbox that his dad had carried as a young boy in the 1970s.  It was made out of hard plastic with an old-fashioned pail design, which opened and closed in the middle half when standing upright.  The lunchbox was still in great condition, and Landry asked if he could use it to carry his lunch to school, to which I approved.

And so he did just that, for many months.

Landry loved that lunchbox, and he knew the value of it.  It was a collector’s item, but he didn’t want to sell it.  He valued it because it was old, unique, and had belonged to his dad.  It was something he treasured.  He wanted to carry his lunch in it like his dad had done as a young boy, and he had plans to later keep it to pass down to his own son someday.  (Yes, at age 10, he is convinced that one day he will have a son.)

In October of last year, one Monday morning following a very busy weekend, I was preparing Landry’s lunch for school, but I couldn’t find his Snoopy lunchbox.  I asked Landry where it was, and he said that he had left it at school on Friday.  (At Landry’s school, the kids go straight to recess after lunch and carry their lunchboxes with them.  They’re responsible to return their lunchboxes to the classroom when recess is over, but Landry had forgotten to do so that Friday and thus his lunchbox was left on the playground.)

So I packed Landry’s lunch in a paper bag and instructed him to retrieve his lunchbox from school that day.

Later that afternoon, I picked Landry up from school and asked how his day had been, to which he responded that it was a very bad day.  I asked him what happened, and he said that he would show me when we got home.

Once we arrived home, he called me into the living room and said that he was ready to show me.  He began to dump the contents of his backpack on the floor.  As he did so, numerous broken, shattered pieces of orange plastic fell to the ground.

My heart sank at the site.

I looked up from the broken pieces and saw the heartbreak in Landry’s eyes.  I asked him what had happened.  He explained that this was the state in which he had found his lunchbox when he went to recess that day.

I hugged Landry and tried to comfort him.  I said that maybe it was an accident.  However, Landry explained that he had found the lunchbox among some smashed up pumpkins near the playground, so it was apparent that it was no accident.  It was a senseless, deliberate act committed by some person(s).

My heart sank even more.

Landry went on to explain how he had gathered up the broken pieces in his jacket and carried them back to his classroom.  He said that the pieces were still special to him and that he didn’t want to throw them away.  I affirmed his desire, and I helped him gather up the pieces and place them in a Ziploc bag for safekeeping.

I asked Landry how he had felt when he found the broken pieces of his lunchbox, and he said that he felt sad and mad.  I asked if he had cried, and he said that he wouldn’t let himself do that at school.  So I told him that he could cry now if he wanted to, and I sat down next to him in our rocker-recliner and embraced him as we rocked for awhile.

As the afternoon wore on, I couldn’t stop thinking about the lunchbox.  My heart was broken for Landry, and I kept replaying the events in my mind.

As I did so, I began to think of the bigger picture that this represented … the picture of our own brokenness and how this looks to God.  The shattered, broken pieces of Landry’s special lunchbox were the picture of a broken heart.

Sometimes our broken pieces are the result of mistakes we’ve made for which we may shame ourselves.  In Landry’s case, he knew that he had made a mistake in forgetting his lunchbox, a mistake that cost him dearly.  His heart was broken and contrite, and the best thing that I could do in that moment was offer love and compassion.

That is exactly how God responds to us if we bring our brokenness to Him.  He sees our broken hearts and offers comfort, grace, and forgiveness.  He allows us to learn from our missteps and encourages us to move forward.  While we can’t go back and undo the damage, we can move forward.  We must move forward.

If Landry could have gone back and changed things, he would have done so.  He would have remembered his lunchbox that Friday.  However, that wasn’t an option.  All he could do at that point was gather up the broken pieces and bring them home.

As I did with Landry, God will help us pick up the broken pieces and place them for safekeeping if we will bring them to Him.  Like Landry with the remains of his lunchbox, God doesn’t see our broken pieces as trash – He sees them as treasure.

God loves us and our broken pieces, whether they’re the result of something of our own doing or something beyond our control.  Let’s face it, there are times when our heartache is caused by unjust and senseless acts, as Landry experienced.  Yes, Landry had forgotten his lunchbox, but he would have been able to retrieve it had someone else not destroyed it.

We find ourselves in situations like this sometimes.  We experience hurt or loss that we have no control over.  It may be malicious, irreverent, and/or just plain unfair.  We may feel violated and betrayed.  We may ask God for answers that don’t come.

However, God offers us peace and comfort if we will come to Him and rest in His loving arms.

We may put on a brave face to keep others from seeing the hurt inside, like Landry had done at school.  God sees through that, though, and just as I did with Landry, God calls us to let down our defenses, release our emotions, and find comfort in His warm embrace.

I attended a conference last year where I was able to hear a message from author and speaker Christine Caine.  Interestingly enough, Christine spoke about broken pieces.  I wrote down these words that Christine spoke about how God works with our broken pieces, “We gather the broken pieces He’s brought us through in our past to remind us of His faithfulness for the future.”

If we give our broken pieces to God, He will carry us through and give us a future, though it may be a different future than we had planned.

Landry’s future was changed when he found the broken remains of his lunchbox.  Not only did he lose this precious treasure and the use of it, but his hopes and dreams of passing the lunchbox on to his own son someday were destroyed.  That would never happen now.

However, Landry still has the pieces and a story to tell, and I relayed to Landry how his story had revealed God’s promises to me.  I asked Landry if I could share his story with the ladies in my Bible study group.  He happily agreed.

Landry anxiously asked me the following day how the ladies had received the story, and I shared with him how God had used it to minister to the ladies.  Since that time I have shared Landry’s story through other mediums, and I’ve informed Landry of how his story is continuing to speak to others.

God will use our heartache to help others and ourselves if we will allow Him to.  With what the enemy intended to harm us, God will use for good.  Joseph summarized his experience this way in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

There are many examples of this in the Bible.  And Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

At a young age, Landry is learning this truth and seeing how good things can come out of something bad.

Will you give your broken pieces to God, and allow Him to do the same for you?