how a shattered ornament spoke to a broken heart

This afternoon I started the process of "putting away Christmas". Ornaments off the tree. Tree taken apart, ready to store. Nativities that were scattered throughout the house gathered to one place. Mantel cleared. Wreaths off of the doors and stacked on the table. Lantern brought in from the porch. Lights taken out of the ceramic houses. Furniture moved to fill the hole left by the tree's removal. I had an early dinner and movie date this evening with a dear family and knew I would not have time to get everything put away, but I wanted to get all the things together in one room. I was running late and did not have time to remove the glass ornaments from the tree in the upstairs hallway before carrying it downstairs. It was the last thing to move. In my rush I was not as careful as I should have been and two ornaments fell to the floor. One shattered. I left it where it lay, slowing my pace as I walked down the stairs hoping there would be no more accidents and successfully deposited the tree next to the table without further breakage. 

I had a great evening. When I returned home one of the first things I did was go upstairs to clean up the glass. It was scattered everywhere and it wasn't until I had swept it into a pile that I really saw the mess in front of me. I had a flashback to posts I have written about grief and shattered hearts.

If I could take a picture of a heart broken by grief, 

this might be what it would look like.

Because I told you this was an ornament, you can identify it, even though it has no real resemblance to what it was before it was broken. You may be able to imagine what it looked like when it was whole, but you can also plainly see it will never be what it was originally. There is a gaping hole. The pieces look like they might very well be from more than one small ornament and were scattered farther than what is reasonable. There is no gluing them back together. The edges are sharp and dangerous. If even a tiny piece eluded my clean up efforts and I step on it barefooted, I will become painfully aware of its presence. I hope it all ended up in the dustpan, then the trash can.

*There are important differences as well. While glass ornaments and hearts are both able to be broken and even shattered, barely resembling what they were originally, my life, my usefulness, my work, my purpose for being are not at an end. God loves me and He is is healing my brokenness. Though my heart will never look or be the same as it was before Bill's death, God is working in and through me. There is still work to be done, beauty to be enjoyed and life to be shared.