Lent 2024: Week two

Hiding the Bokenness

When I was a child, I broke my parents’ vase. I don’t remember how, but I remember what I did with the broken shards. I hid them. No one was around to hear the vase fall, no one saw the debris, so I quickly scooped up the pieces and placed them on the shelf in the playroom closet behind a stuffed animal, baseball mitt, or board games like Twister, Sorry, or Mousetrap. I’m not sure what I was thinking. It wasn’t like my parents wouldn’t notice the missing vase, but, at the time, hiding the pieces seemed like a good idea.

It still does.

Although I’m older now, my first instinct when I see the broken parts of me is to hide them. For years, I did my best to hide my brokenness. I stuffed the pieces behind a Christmas-card-family, a successful career, even a black shirt and plastic white collar. I also made sure I surrounded myself with friends who wouldn’t look too close. The problem was, my hiding did nothing to the brokenness. The pieces were still there whether I saw them or not. They were just as real even if no one noticed.

If my emerging faith has given me anything, it’s the power to stop hiding my brokenness. In the assurance that I’m created in God’s image but have distorted that image through costly mistakes and crippling fears, there’s no need to keep hiding parts of me.

Lent is a time to do soul-searching, and one of the things we should search for deep within our souls is the brokenness we’ve spent a lifetime hiding. Like naming grief last week, this is not easy work. It will take effort and practice, but the freedom on the other side is worth it.

Who knows, maybe our courage will invite others to do the same.