Through the Looking Glass

It's all tumbling down, and I'm feeling much too much like a nursery rhyme, falling off my high wall and cracking.  The fissure started small enough but has slowly crept along until a simple question I couldn't walk away from forced me to stop and answer.  Out of nowhere, right there on the church sidewalk, I shattered into pieces so tiny there was no hope in the best efforts of all the king's men.  The decibel of genuine concern was enough to break the barrier I had erected.  It left me frantically crawling on the concrete in a desperate attempt to sweep up the pieces while people stepped around unaware.  I pulled myself together into a Picasso, just enough to walk away with bloody hands and knees and a feeling I couldn't identify or shake.

I'm looking through this glass of brokenness and just beginning to see how far from together I've been even on those days when my reflected image has told me otherwise.  For years, I've connected the mismatched bits in the pattern of false pretenses of strength and competence and sat aloft with a well placed smile, quickly replacing pieces that slipped out of place with a temporary glue. 

But this shattering freed me to seek out the King who can pull me together and hold me fast amidst the quaking earth and the falling sky.  I've lost the illusion of perfection only to gain the reality of the Perfect One.