Love One Another

I loved this little ceramic doodad when I saw it first at my sister's house. A few weeks later I was shopping and saw it and had to buy it. We happened to be remodeling our bathroom at the time and I had the perfect shelf to put it on. It's sat there fairly untouched for about a year. Then when I was dusting a few months ago my arm bumped it and it fell and broke into three pieces on our bathroom tile floor. At first I was heart-broken (silly, huh?) and it was all I could do to pick up the pieces and set them aside. For a few days they sat there and I cringed every time I saw them. Finally after a few days the thought came to me that I could glue it back together. I used some ceramic glue and rubber bands and the next day it was whole again (although not without scars).

Today as I was looking at it, the thought came to me that maybe I like it a little better the way it is now:

I think the reason I like it a little better is because it more closely represents real life, especially family life. We love one another and then something happens - maybe a trial, maybe a hurtful or unkind word, maybe a mistake or a sin. Our love sometimes gets broken. It hurts to think about it, so we just set it aside for a little while. After a while (minutes, hours, days, weeks or years sometimes) we start to patch it back together until it's whole again. We have scars, but we've forgiven and we love again.

And after a while...we think to ourselves, maybe I like it a little better the way it is now. The thing about love is it it grows with each forgiven mistake and strengthens through each trial endured.