Those who know me, know how much I love antiques. I love exploring those big shops filled with individually run booths with displays of items from yester year. I especially enjoy looking at things that people used in everyday life, imagining who used it, and what their life was like.
One year, after a day spent exploring antique shops, I purchased an old secretary desk. I loved the pull down front, complete with a lock and skeleton key. The space for writing was covered in faded red leather, and behind it stood slots and cubbies waiting to be filled with stationery supplies. It was built of solid honey stained oak and I pictured a woman from a hundred years before, sitting at the desk, writing a letter to a loved one far away.
I placed the secretary in the back of my van and headed home. The problem was (and still is!), I’m not the packer in my family and didn’t think about securing it in any way. The first bump I drove over made the desk toppled over. As soon as I heard a thud, I had a bad feeling. When I arrived home and opened the back of the van, I discovered the desk had fallen apart in pieces. Many pieces.
I was crushed.
My husband and father-in-law took charge. They applied wood glue to all the pieces and held them together with clamps. A couple days later, the desk stood there as it had before. You couldn’t tell it had fallen apart.
That was almost fifteen years ago and the desk still stands tall in my kitchen. I often look at it and remember the sorrow I felt when it broke apart and the joy I felt when it was mended. It reminds me of my own life and how the Lord has healed my own brokenness. It reminds me that even when things are at their worst, there is still hope. Because God is a God of redemption. He takes what is broken and makes it whole. I can attest to this in my own life and have witnessed it in the lives of others.
But the greatest testimony of this is that of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Imagine what the disciples must have thought and felt when they saw Jesus crucified. I imagine not only the great grief but also the despair and hopelessness. How could anything come of Jesus’ death? But then the resurrection! They saw Jesus’ broken body healed. They talked and walked and ate with him. And because Jesus conquered death and overcame the grave, he now sits at the right hand of God. He reigns on high and even now is at work to make all things new. “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).
Jesus defeated sin and death. And by his perfect life lived for us and his sacrificial death in our place, he redeems and restores us. He cleanses us from sin. He brings us back into right relationship with God. He makes all that is broken whole. Indeed, those who are in Christ are new creations (Rom. 6:11, 2 Cor. 5:17). The Spirit is at work in us even now, transforming us into the image of Christ. And one day, that work will be complete. What glorious hope we have in Christ!
Life often seems like my broken secretary desk, fallen apart into too many pieces to count. But God can do even more than simply glue the pieces of life back together; he gives new life. He transforms.
Have you seen God take what is broken and make it new?
Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash
