With a bunch of younger kids there were things we didn't bother fixing. Particularly after the second or third time. Door knobs. Cabinet hinges. Chairs. Each new blemish or brokenness met with resignation. Sometimes an expletive. Worn carpet. Chipped paint. Wall stains.
Now, as they're getting older, as that first newborn I held so many years ago is a beautiful, young woman on the verge of leaving the nest... these no longer beg repair. They charm me. Haunt me. Like old family photos. Memories of our life together. Creaky floors and steps. The passage of time. They indelibly mark a kind of ongoing christening. What was once just a house has become a home. Is becoming a home.
All this moving me to wonder just now. Looking at our kitchen cabinets. Wondering if what I might have once regarded as something worn, to be fixed, masked, isn't more truly, something real. Unmasked. Genuine. And in the contrast, I'm amazed by awareness not of how these have changed, but how I have changed. From merely tolerating things being worn, to revering them as something real.
And I wonder. In our ever-accumulating blemishes and brokenness, is this what God sees of us? Worn of our paint. A bit off our hinges. Frayed at the edges. Does He rush in to fix them, or do these move His heart? Does He see each and every unique mark and deeply treasure them... love them... love us?
And I wonder If all this isn't, in fact, our Christening... our becoming more like Christ. The real "home" making. Preparing us for our eternal home here on earth, as it is in heaven.
Today, as you encounter the same old blemishes and brokenness, consider that perhaps your healing and repair and restoration is precisely in recognizing Jesus Christ, whose healing hands are still marked by all of this. By us. And that all this is not simply endured by God, but celebrated... in the breaking of the bread. At every Mass.
Now, as they're getting older, as that first newborn I held so many years ago is a beautiful, young woman on the verge of leaving the nest... these no longer beg repair. They charm me. Haunt me. Like old family photos. Memories of our life together. Creaky floors and steps. The passage of time. They indelibly mark a kind of ongoing christening. What was once just a house has become a home. Is becoming a home.
All this moving me to wonder just now. Looking at our kitchen cabinets. Wondering if what I might have once regarded as something worn, to be fixed, masked, isn't more truly, something real. Unmasked. Genuine. And in the contrast, I'm amazed by awareness not of how these have changed, but how I have changed. From merely tolerating things being worn, to revering them as something real.
And I wonder. In our ever-accumulating blemishes and brokenness, is this what God sees of us? Worn of our paint. A bit off our hinges. Frayed at the edges. Does He rush in to fix them, or do these move His heart? Does He see each and every unique mark and deeply treasure them... love them... love us?
And I wonder If all this isn't, in fact, our Christening... our becoming more like Christ. The real "home" making. Preparing us for our eternal home here on earth, as it is in heaven.
Today, as you encounter the same old blemishes and brokenness, consider that perhaps your healing and repair and restoration is precisely in recognizing Jesus Christ, whose healing hands are still marked by all of this. By us. And that all this is not simply endured by God, but celebrated... in the breaking of the bread. At every Mass.
