Why The Cracks Matter...

 I've never liked cracks. Beauty-loving person I am, I've never seen them as something to appreciate. Whether inside or out, cracks were meant to be erased - done away with. Gone forever. Never to be seen again. They weren't esthetically pleasing, so why let them stay? 

Now, I will admit. My home has a few of them. But they're on the repair list...for a reason! 

However, the recent earthquake has made me discover a deep truth about the importance of cracks in a life. Just maybe I've ignored something profound about the un-pleasing. Something that God sees as more...

The cracks are everywhere after the earthquake - a large one now displays itself toward the back of my church as sheet-rock was twisted in un-natural ways and caused a split. A few more run down the wall of the women's bathroom at church, looking like an un-planned surgery happened. Parking lots in my nearby town now are bumpier than ever with cracked asphalt making for a rough ride as you pull in. Businesses have cracks in their floors... but nobody is fixing it all yet. Because their letting the aftershocks die down a bit more as new cracks are still forming due to the continuous shifting and shaking of the earth. We're having to live with the visually unsightly for awhile. But perhaps that's a lesson I've needed to learn? 

If a life didn't have cracks, it wouldn't be a survivor. Cracks tell stories. They show that something or someone has been through some things. They're the proof that life happened. But something or someone is still standing to prove it. It shows that they were shaken but not broken. It shows that the damage may have scarred but it was not the end. It did not have the last word. Survival and hope did. 

In my flawed vision, it's becoming clear to me that I've looked at broken things all wrong. I've hated the cracks in my life when I should've been embracing their presence instead. Rather than looking for ways to cover them up and pretend like life's hardship didn't happen, maybe I have to live with the evidences of what I've been through and learn to see my story written in them. Learn to see them as proof that I've come through the shaking of my soul and survived. 

Life can shake up a heart deeply, yet it can still be un-broken. A soul can be scarred, can bear the marks of all things that threatened to rip it in two. Can even sorrow over the perfect now un-done, yet can still rejoice. Can still choose the thankful way even when its foundations have been nearly torn up. 

God holds you together. He may allow a few cracks to come as reminders to you that this life is about learning to thrive in the uncertain, but He will never let you fall apart. His promise to keep you from breaking is the life-hope of all your days. 

These external cracks have driven me to gaze once more at the cracks that exist in my soul. To ask for God's forgiveness for seeing this askew. To pray for grace to keep on surviving this soul-shaking I've endured for so long. Just as the aftershocks continue to keep this earthquake close to our memory, the shocks to the heart - when they come - remind me that Love keeps this soul held together. That the cracks are evidence that I've come through the worst...and am standing still, by the grace of God. 

Now, after coming to this realization, I'm seeing cracks everywhere. Outside and in. And I'm seeing a God-breathed story told through them all. And somehow, they aren't so ugly to my sight anymore.