It was 5:30 am when the wheels of the airplane touched down. The sky was still full of the night darkness and a crisp in the air lingered from the remains of the fallen sunset just hours before. That red-eye flight home left our mood and atmosphere feeling heavy – real heavy. For the first time as parents … one of our children had moved away from home.

Moving our graceful one had left me struggling to process the new reality that lie before me. Wanting nothing more than to close my eyes and have all things be different when I open them.

By the time we had reached the car to begin our trek home the sky was awakening with beautiful shades of pink and orange.  A picture worthy sunrise full of the promise of the new day. I sat staring out the window, with tear stained cheeks and red swollen eyes, taking in all the beauty and wondered how … once again? How, once again, I would adjust to another new change. With my broken heart in tow I asked the One who created this sunrise to also create in me a new outlook for my cracked open soul. Create a new hope just like that picture worthy sunrise. I desperately pleaded with Him to pick up the broken pieces and gently hold them in His care.

It’s been several months since that day. These broken pieces I carry around are still longing to be mended and placed back into my busted-open-heart. My graceful one and I are struggling to survive this journey together from a place of grace and understanding. Struggling to maintain what is ours to nurture. A constant press to bridge the gap from two different time zones … 2600 miles apart. I know it’s because my heart loves so deeply that it also hurts deeply, but it still leaves me clinging to more than what is.

Can these busted hearts mend? Can each of us gently hold the other’s jagged-broken-pieces that need to be nurtured? Is the gaping hole in our hearts just simply allowing for more pain to seep in?

I think back to those moments a few months ago when I pleaded with God to gently hold my broken pieces. How I needed a soft place to fall with my cracked open soul. And how He met me there and answered with love. 

God is asking the same of me now. To nurture my graceful one with love and from a place of tenderness. To gently hold the broken pieces in my care and help create a new hope. To guide with a loving hand and a listening ear.

Aren’t we all the same? Don’t we each desire the same for our broken pieces?

Sometimes it takes my own broken pieces to see and really feel the brokenness within others. It’s one of the reasons I believe God allows the broken pieces and cracked open souls to occur in the first place – so we can grow in love one with another. It’s through this love, and how we love like Him, that others will find the real hope in eternity.

Every human heart will ache at one time. And in that very ache of the cracked open soul lies a heart that longs for someone to walk along with them and carry the broken pieces. Someone to reach out their hand, lend an ear or pull up a chair … for as long as needed. We just need to love as Christ loves us and extend grace and understanding.

We are all broken in some way, but we each find true healing in the same way. First, through the One who offers the only hope for our brokenness … and then by loving the way He loves us.

Gently hold the broken pieces of those you love.