”For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken. It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack.’ DH Lawrence.

I woke up on Sunday morning by the raucous cheers of my merry-making boys. I felt weary, my body heavy, a head full of cold and a flawed heart; a heart not ready to pour gentle grace into my precious family. I only had just short of an hour to feed the boys breakfast, get everyone dressed, shower, dress myself, change a nappy, gather snacks, feed the cat and get to church on time in a somewhat military fashion.

The sky looked unpromising as my husband turned the worship music up to drown out the inharmonious sounds in the back of the car. I’m usually excited about going to church, but on this day I really didn’t want to face people and I really didn’t feel like I had the energy to raise my hands to God and be thankful. Lately I have been pondering my past and the journey of my life and I have felt some wounds re-open, ones I thought had healed. TD Jakes says, ‘I am reminded of what my mother used to say, she would take the band- aid off, clean the wound and say, “things that are covered don’t heal well.’

As I entered church already feeling exhausted, the music began. I felt ashamed, exposed, even though no one knew how I was feeling I wore that smile that said I was fine. I held my youngest tight as he wrapped his little legs around me like a little security blanket, and I began to sing. At first I began to sing dutifully, but as I closed my eyes and thanked God for my life and my family and the fact that I am in His house and no-longer lost, a joy began to well up in me. I was reminded that joy is not a feeling, it’s a fruit, a fruit of the spirit. His Spirit. His joy. I began to feel His joy for me. I am his joy. I felt the eyes of my heart begin to sharpen, I began to feel my cracked heart fill with light.

I pictured myself at the edge of the sea and I began to wade towards the waves, I felt brave and wonderful. Angels surrounded me as they flew above the surface of the  crystal clear water, the most amazing blue I had ever seen. The sun shone on my skin and I felt an incredible love fill me from head to toe and my heart was visible like glass, cracked but still in shape, shafts of light shone through. The surface of my heart was like a prism of many colours and stunning mosaic swirls. I realised that even though my heart feels fractured and I don’t always understand what is going on and why certain things are happening to me, he was reminding me that he lives in my heart, he lives in my pain, my heart is His dwelling place and although I carry a lot of hurt from years and years of walking on a rocky road, He is the One that holds it together and although it feels broken sometimes, it isn’t shattered, it isn’t smashed to pieces…

It is cracked like a kaleidoscope of brilliant colours and If I hadn’t lived the life that I had lived then I wouldn’t see this beauty and it is an honour to allow the brilliant and beautiful light of my living God shine through this broken vessel, through these stunning swirls and beautiful cracks. In this perfect moment I saw that my heart is not fully mended and perhaps it never will be, perhaps I will forever hold this hurting heart because my heart is way too sensitive for this broken world I live in, but one thing I do know is that as I live with my lovely, cracked kaleidoscopic heart I am beautiful and I carry a joy that will never go away and when I meet my saviour face to face I know my heart will be whole.

Just as the worship music came to an end my lovely friend began the meeting with a word from God. As she began to talk my heart leaped as she shared that a few days earlier she was stood on the beach and as she took a deep breath at the water’s edge the anxiety that consumed her disappeared, and how this is a picture of how Jesus is ready to calm our fears and fills us with his peace.

I love it how God meets us exactly where we are and sometimes in the most unexpected places. He’s even willing to turn up in my crazy imagination. I love it how not one of us ‘has it all together’ whatever that means. We are all a work in progress. No matter how dark or broken someone’s heart is; Jesus doesn’t judge. He is waiting full of unconditional love to enter each dark crevice and fill them with his shafts of light and turn each hurting heart into something bright and beautiful. No matter how black and broken a heart might be, like a lovely, dawn- kaleidoscopic within the crack he turns each crack, each dark story into something utterly amazing.

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