We have all heard the phrase “be careful what you wish for!”
I have also heard someone say, “be careful what you pray for!”
And I felt that phrase right in the heart this week. It felt like God was calling us out for talking a big game but not having our hearts in the right place.
“Did you really mean that?”
You see, Addie and I have prayed for years that we would be able to hold our stuff (our belongings - our actual, physical stuff) with an open hand. That prayer has taken on a new life in recent months as our ever-curious 14-month-old Caleb grows in mobility and dexterity.
I don’t know how many times we have said to each other, “It’s just stuff. Our job is to create a safe place for Caleb to play. If something breaks, oh well. It’s just stuff.”
And so we watch with a smile (on the outside) as he pulls books off the shelves, thumbs through them, then tosses them into a pile, bending pages and covers every which-way.
“It’s just stuff. Our job is to create a safe place for Caleb to play. If something breaks, oh well. It’s just stuff.”
That’s easy enough to say when it’s just some paperback books getting bent out of shape. (And, believe me, I call books ‘friends’, so it’s probably fair to say I have a more emotional attachment to my books than the average person. So it’s not really that easy.)
But then this week turned into put-up-or-shut-up time.
Twice, on back-to-back days, things actually got broken. Like, broken-beyond-repair broken.
“It’s just stuff. Our job is to create a safe place for Caleb to play. If something breaks, oh well. It’s just stuff.”
Or, that’s what we were supposed to say…
But these were two wedding gifts. From two special people.
We were sad. Sad that they got broken. But also sad that we were sad that they got broken.
That sadness made it clear that we were giving lip-service to holding our stuff with an open hand without having our hearts in the right place.
So now we return to that prayer with a new fervor, asking God to transform our hearts to truly see all that we have as a gift from him that we are free to let go of at any time He sees fit.
And there’s a tricky balance there, as there is in so many situations: we don’t want to be reckless with our stuff - we want to steward well what He has given us - but we also want to guard against being so attached to our material possessions that we are sad when they break or are lost.
As Addie and I have been processing through the events of this week, the chorus to one of the songs that we sang during Summer Quest came to mind:
As the world shake shakes
And things break break
You are my rock my everything
The reality of our fallen world is that things do break. Cake stands break. Wooden crosses break. Bodies break. Relationships break.
But the beautiful gospel never breaks: no matter the brokenness around us, God stands strong as our rock, our everything.
I pray that as you find yourself in the midst of brokenness - whether you are sweeping up broken pieces of glass, sweeping up the metaphorical broken pieces of a relationship, or sweeping away tears over the broken body of a loved one - you would find peace and strength in the truth of God’s steadfast faithfulness that endures forever.
I love you, Church!
-Nathan Ehresman