Patched not Perfect

I pick up toys and bits and pieces of fragmented thoughts. I pause at the completed puzzle on the floor. I hate to take it apart to put it away. Hate to break the whole for bits and pieces. Isn’t that the way it is with us? We like the complete puzzle, never the missing pieces. What can one learn if we are always whole? A slow whisper; your pieces are valuable. Each one is a part of you, and without them, they never make the whole. We are never a finished product. Always in motion, ever bending, ever changing, ever molding, into a masterpiece. If we don’t lean in and let the heart-work begin, how can we ever expect to be whole?

Our pieces are beautiful-our messy, hidden-secret pieces. Although, we are never really hidden, we hide from ourselves, our world, in hopes of presenting a whole-self. We dream of the someday self that we can show the world. The one where there are no fragments, no scars or hidden secrets. We long for a blank slate to blanket the mess underneath, pushing all the yuck out at the seams.

On a quick walk today, I find myself looking down for the majority of the time, always looking for rocks. You see, I always find heart shaped rocks and it brings me some sort of childlike joy. Today I find one that is large and heavy. Weighted. It is no ordinary heart-shaped rock. In fact, they are all different, aren’t they? This one catches my eye like none other. It’s not sparkly, or white, or petite.

It is sort of masculine looking grey, with a thick strip of rock running vertical up the middle. All I could picture was a merger of some sort, of two broken halves coming together to make one whole. A whole heart. Only it’s not a polished, shiny heart. Instead, this one has a bandaid built in. A bandaid putting the fragments back together, not to hide the splinters, but to allow the heart to function again.

It is a reminder that even scars can be beautiful if we let the heart-work finish.