The Mender

this blessed my heart . . . so i'm sharing . . .

quoted from page 139-140 - "Legacy of a Pack Rat"
by Ruth Bell Graham

He had built for himself a great house on one of the Caribbean islands. It is a thing to behold. Tall rusty iron columns, collected and resurrected with an ingenious homemade device. This Great House is a masterpiece of salvaged materials.

A collector and seller of scrap metal as well as antiques, he was also fascinated with broken bits and pieces of china dug from his front yard. His friends, John and June Cash, laughingly remarked it was the first time they had heard of a yard sale where the man had sold the yard itself. Carefully he fitted and glued the pieces together. Few ever came out whole. They remained simply the collection of one who cared.

When I expressed interest, he gave me a blue-and-white plate, carefully glued together - pieces missing.

"You remind me of God," I said. By the look on his face, I knew I had shocked him and I hurriedly explained.

"God pieces back broken lives lovingly. Sometimes a piece is irretrievably lost. But still He gathers what He can and restores us.

"Perhaps it gives pleasure to no one else, but to Him." . . .

. . . "God cares about broken lives, broken people. Lovingly, painstakingly, He puts them back together.

Some may be of no practical, human use because of some missing piece, but they can be a comforting reminder that God cares deeply about broken people and wants to piece them back together - painstakingly and with love.

And GOD, the Mender of broken lives, will take pleasure in them."