All the Broken Things

As we sat around the living room, the Christmas tree still aglow four days after Christmas, warmth from the fireplace heating the room, providing softness to all it touched, my husband held up the corner of a dining room chair for inspection.

It now lacked the protective cap on the end, causing it to bobble back and forth when anyone sat upon it as well as causing scratches on our lovely hardwood floors. “I keep finding things like this,” he said. “My ladder never made it off the truck. Dented things, scratched things, scuffed things, things with missing parts. I’m always finding new damage from the move.”

I shook my head in both acknowledgment and agreement. In truth, I too kept finding damaged things–missing things, dented things, scuffed things, and scratched things. However, my discoveries mostly involved parts of us, damaged relationships within our family, my own hurting heart, missing pieces in our lives.

In December, we moved from Florida to Virginia to accommodate my husband’s job. The months leading up to our move hadn’t been easy. He had gone ahead of me, leaving me in charge of the care of our home and children on my own. My health is precarious at all times, but it was stretched to the limit and far beyond while performing double duty.

We felt certain everything would be easier once we moved. We’d be reunited in the same location. There would be less strain on my body. However, there were a few factors in our transition we failed to properly plan for or consider. For me, one of which was how deeply I would be affected by the day-to-day absence of my oldest son. A senior in high school, he wanted to stay behind and finish out the year.

I’ve often heard it said that some people plan for a wedding, but not the marriage. In this case, we planned for the move, but not life after the move.

As a result, we’ve found damaged pieces, loss, and hurt on the other side. What we thought would only bring relief has actually brought a tremendous amount of strain and grief. Would this loss and transition have come whether we had planned for it or not? Absolutely. However, we could have better prepared for and insulated ourselves ahead of time. Just like our movers could have better packaged the contents of our home for the journey, we could have better prepared ourselves for the bumps certain to be found along the way.

Transitions are fraught with discomfort and strain. Knowing this, there are specific and intentional steps we can take in order to transition smoothly. What will our relationships need during the transition in order to stay healthy? How will we ensure our daily quiet time with the Lord isn’t disrupted during the transition? When all is chaos in our world, we’ll need this quiet time with our heavenly Father more than ever before. How will we maintain connection with our spouse, our children during this transition? What acts of self-care will we maintain in the midst of this upheaval in our lives? Our children, our spouses, our community, need us to be our best versions of ourselves.

Whether we are transitioning into another state or another job, another season of life, or into a new normal, being intentional about preserving connections can prevent damage.

As we prepared for our move, we often referred to a checklist given to us by the moving company. In retrospect, I wish I’d created a checklist ensuring the safe arrival of the things far more important to me than the contents of my moving van like my marriage, my relationship with Christ, my children, my calling.

If you are entering a season of transition, can I encourage you to consider more than the day-to-day logistics of this season? Perhaps you can create a checklist specific to your transition.

On the other side, you can sit around your fireplace and enjoy the beauty, no furniture inspections necessary. However, if you should find some missing or broken pieces in your relationships, let’s remember that we are intimately acquainted with the mender of all the broken things.

Stacey Philpot is wife to Ryan and mother to Hayden, Julie, and Avery. She is a writer, goofball, and avid reader. Stacey has ministered for over 15 years to youth and women in her community in order to equip them to go deeper in Christ. She blogs at aliferepaired.com and chronicallywhole.com.

Photograph © Erol Ahmed, used with permission