Things Broken

It started with my red chair.  My perfect little red chair that I bought for $35 from a yard sale.  My talented father-in-law had recovered it in a cheery red fabric and I loved that chair.  Well, it broke.  It was old.

Our telephone stopped working too.

Then our camera stopped working.

On Thanksgiving morning, Olivia called me (on my cell phone).  She said, "Where ARE you?"  She'd been trying to reach me on my home phone which wouldn't work.  I told her the sad tale of everything broken.

She told me that Marianne had a broken dryer, dishwasher and her water was a perplexing shade of brown.  ( I should add that Marianne has six children and when you have six children you need a dryer, dishwasher and clear water. )

Our conversation turned to our Thanksgiving preparations and Olivia wowed me with her description of the two different kinds of sweet potatoes she was preparing.  I said, "Well you can make two different types of sweet potatoes because you don't have anything broken.  Those of us that do have to have lower expectations for ourselves."

It started me thinking though. What usually happens is I ruminate about something for a few days then write a blog post to clear my head.

I've been thinking about broken things, broken hearts for example.  A young mother in our extended family passed away the day after Thanksgiving.  She left behind a two year old daughter and loving husband.  The rest of us feel a little broken hearted.

When I was in high school my friend Wyatt drove off the icy road one day and through the neighbor's fence into a field.  The next day he went and repaired the fence.  Broken things need to be mended.

Adam and I read online about our camera.  Evidently the problem it's having is a common one.  Apparently for scores of people, the solution has been to bang the camera against their knee and it works.

(We tried it.  It didn't work.)

Sometimes we can't fix what's broken.  For example, when in high school I drove through a fence after sliding off a slick road, my dad and brothers fixed the fence.  I don't know how to fix fence.  (Wyatt incidentally told me how unfair this was but in the culture where we resided, there were girl jobs and boy jobs and fixing fence was a boy job.)

I've been thinking about how we're all a little broken in various ways.  We all need a little mending.  Some of it we can do ourselves.  Sometimes we can try crazy fixes like banging our camera against our knee which may or may not work.  As my thoughts turn to Christmas, I have been reflecting on the Savior, the mender and fixer of our brokenness. 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:  and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows...

Isaiah 53:4

Indeed good tidings of great joy.