About a year ago, my dear friend’s daughter was in a very dark place in her life. She is the youngest child, gorgeous, comes from a wonderful family, intelligent, you name it. But you’ve seen it before: hanging out with the wrong crowd, making scary, potentially life-altering decisions, and even running away from home. My friend didn’t even know where she was for a few days. Can you imagine the panic and heartache? She just wasn’t the child she knew was inside, but of course, as moms do, she kept loving her daughter with all her might and praying even harder for a miracle. She told me that one of her prayers was to heal her broken heart. She said watching her daughter live in this way had just shattered her heart into tiny pieces. She prayed and prayed for God to put the pieces back together, again.
Just one year later, things have completely turned around. You should see this girl! What a bottle of sunshine! She is a stunning, strong woman and a caring human being. She’s just magnetic! And you should see the way her mom’s face lights up when she talks about her daughter. My friend said when she realized how drastically different things had become in just one year, she didn’t feel like God had put her broken heart back together, but instead, felt as though God filled the cracks in her heart with joy.
Now, whatever you believe in: God, the Universe, karma, Mother Nature... you know we all have these stories. The ones where we realize that things are finally okay, again. On my first date with David, I had a glimmer of it. A few days later, on our second date, after a wonderful Friendsgiving and meeting all his friends, we stayed up laughing (Who am I kidding? We were giggling. Hysterically. Like even some of those silent belly ones where your cheeks hurt and you start to get a stitch in your side.), and I had my moment of feeling like my cracks had been filled up with joy. Suddenly, I knew the heartache from losing my dad, the pain from my first marriage and divorce, all of it...it made sense. It’s that feeling of knowing you would do it all over, again, if you knew where it was leading you. That’s joy filling up the cracks.
Of course, life will undoubtedly hurt, again, and there will be more cracks, but this time you’re a little stronger. You know you don’t know where it is all leading to, but you trust that eventually you’ll feel that joy, again.
#believeingood
Cracks Filled With Joy
30”x 40”
Oil and acrylic on canvas