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~WHOLE~

~Five Minute Friday~

Whole~Complete

Lying on a cloud of down, prayers said, Bible tucked under the pillow; I was completely pulled in to the book I was reading on my Kindle.

A good story, beautiful prose, one way God meets me in my pain. The piling of soft down layered beneath me, another.

I missed the #fmfparty last night. Did not even check in for a peak at today’s word ’till sleep was interrupted at four am.

WHOLE.

The last precious minutes of sleep slip away as I give the word freedom to dance around my mind.

Oh, this will be easy I thought. ‘Till I realized it has been all of the hard, all of the broken fragments of me, making me whole.

Healing does not always come in ways we want or even expect. 

I greedily grab my mug of coffee and pull a book off the shelf. Mended: Pieces of a Life Made Whole by Angie Smith. (if you have not read this book, please do, it is a beautiful piece of work)

I spent the early days of hard clinging to the whole of me as it faded away. So often these past years, as The Wilderness Marathon spreads endless before me, I would pick up this book. Gaze at the cover (pictured above). My body was shattering, just as the pieces of the pitcher Angie smashed onto hard ground before her. Glueing the pieces back together became her way to process all that she had been through. A way to see The Light as it shines through the cracks of brokenness. Healing. Made whole again.

I wanted so badly to toss a piece of pottery to the ground, I simply did not have the strength.

Through this struggle, I have come to see myself just as the pitcher. Fragments of broken shattered to the ground. A piece of pottery in The Potter’s hands.

It is only through brokenness one becomes whole. It was clear to me. The message. I left the asking for healing to the powerful and mighty prayer warriors surrounding me. 

“The places that seem hollowed out and destroyed hold the potential for a beautiful transformation.” Angie Smith~Mended

The beautiful transformation is where I am being made whole. The transformation is the healing. It’s a work in progress. There is no glue strong enough to mend my broken body. Only the Savior’s hands.

…everything HE does reveals his glory and majesty…

Psalm 111:3 NLT (emphasis mine)

Gifts of Grace

Tammy Mashburn

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