Choosing to Be a Mender

In the past year I have tossed out, bought, and again tossed out more throw pillows than I ever imagined humanly possible. I had my rescue pup to thank for this uptick in pillow purchases and disposal. Hobbes was a sweet dog, but he suffered some trauma before coming to live with us, and he was destructive. In the fourteen months he lived in our home, Hobbes destroyed more pillows than I cared to track, including every back cushion of a seven-seat sectional couch.

This trend was frustrating, to say the least. When I finally broke down and bought extra-large pillows to replace the back cushions, many of them suffered the same bite-ridden fate. Eventually I sat on my couch to mend what replacement pillows I could, taking those I couldn’t repair out to the curb.

My sewing skills leave much to be desired. The only proper sewing I ever learned was reattaching a button onto a shirt and ribbons onto pointe shoes. My lack of skill didn’t deter me from trying to repair the pillows, but after hours of stitching crooked lines across the fabric, I longed to throw them all away and buy a new couch. Not only was this dream not in my budget but it was impractical. A home with three young kids and a pillow-eating dog is hardly the best place for new furniture. I carried on with only a few poked fingers along the way.

Our Throwaway Culture

We live in a throwaway culture. We stand in line to get the latest smartphone while scrolling on a perfectly functioning device. We carry overstuffed bags to donation centers and just a few months later find our homes are once again filled with objects we don’t need. Supermarkets are filled with single-use items. An island of garbage twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean.

The casting off doesn’t end with material things. We fail to do the hard work of reconciliation in relationships, choosing the easier path of breaking ties. We distance ourselves from people who differ from us politically or theologically, seeing no value in their points of view. Ending relationships can be as simple as an unfollow or an unfriend on social media. We leave the church when the pastor challenges us from the stage or we don’t like the worship style, moving on to a new community until the next push against our preference.

Many good and healthy reasons exist to leave relationships, friendships, marriages, and faith communities behind. This is especially true when any kind of abuse occurs. But too often when we leave we’re acting out of selfishness. We want what is newer, shinier, and easier.

In decades past, clothes were darned, hemmed, and repaired. Our ancestors knew how to make belongings last. They were repaired or repurposed. We have lost the eyes to see value in the aging and broken.

We need to remember the work of mending.

Mending Takes Time

One of the reasons we’re so quick to throw away is that replacing is faster than mending. Whether it’s a household item or a friendship, it can be far faster to get a new item or friend than to try to repair what you currently have. Our lives move at a frenetic pace. Mending causes us to slow down, examine what’s broken, and plan to fix it.

Mending Is Messy

Purchasing rarely ends in a mess, yet mending often does. I sometimes find that when cleaning or fixing, the problem gets worse I make progress. I drew blood at least once while repairing my pillows. My work left uneven lines. The mending of relationships can be much messier. There can be tears, maybe shouting, misunderstanding, and hurt. But if you get past the mess, you may end up with a relationship stronger than before the mending. Don’t let the chaos of working to make a relationship right stop you from trying to fix it.

Mending Is Holy

Scripture tells us that God is working to make all things new. Living in this broken world, we know how difficult the task before him would be for us. We take our earthly home for granted, pouring pollution into our water, air, and land with little thought of the ramifications so long as we can keep our extravagant standard of living. We treat the poor like cast-off items, giving them only our leftovers instead of our best and wanting them far from our “safe” communities. We fail to listen well to those with whom we disagree and write them off as unworthy of our time. We have made a mess so tremendous that it’s daunting to know where to start the cleanup.

If ever there lived someone who could have cast us all off, it was Jesus—God in the flesh—who was persecuted and betrayed, beaten and murdered by the very people he came to save. Jesus could have discarded us all, and he had every reason to. Yet we know he chose the way of grace and love. He welcomed children (Matthew 19:13–14). He ate with those society despised and cast out (Mark 2:13–17). He welcomed convicted felons to share paradise with him (Luke 23:43).

The work of mending is the work of Jesus. As his followers, we must reject a throwaway culture and dig our heels into the hard work of joining Christ in the renewal of all things. The task is daunting, but we can start by recycling a can or picking up the phone to reconnect with the family member with whom we’ve broken ties.

I’m committing my life to the mending. Will you join me?

Lindsay Hufford is a writer, slow marathoner, home educator and mediocre knitter. Her favorite things include books, kombucha, kitchen dancing, natural wellness, Jesus, and nachos. She spends days with her handsome hubby, three adorable kids, a flock of hens, a runaway peahen, wandering barn cat, and rescue dog. Lindsay shares ways to live simply and love extravagantly at www.lindsayhufford.com.

Photograph © Volha Flaxeco, used with permission