A Spring of Joy

While coloring with Bella this weekend, she kept trying to tear her own pages out of her coloring book, each one resulting in a jagged tear through the middle. Finally, one came out easily and she colored to her heart’s content. Finding a speck of paper sticking up in the middle of it, she tried to tear it off and ended up ripping her artwork in several places.

Bringing it to me, Bella said, “I teared it.” I asked her how it happened and she showed me, then I explained to her how if she comes to Mommy I would help her so her picture wouldn’t get torn. I believe my words to her were, “It might be ruined. See, it’s all torn.” No matter how gently those words were spoken, it cut to her heart.

“But Mommy,” her eyes pooled with tears, “Even the torn is beautiful.”

I sighed, and rubbed my head between the eyes. I have caught myself rubbing that spot a lot lately. It’s that spot I rub when I am wondering how to respond. (And that spot where the deepest wrinkles are forming.)

“Oh, love,” I pulled her onto my lap. “It is still beautiful, isn’t it?”

She is so right. The torn is beautiful. The broken isn’t trash. The messy isn’t worthless. In a world where we casually toss away broken toys, torn papers, ripped clothing, what are we doing with the broken people in our life?

Are they valued? Or do we walk away from the messy? Do we throw away the relationships that are broken? Do we mend the torn or discard them as worthless?

Just some food for thought courtesy of my three-year-old. She’s good at that.