In Only a Moment

Crash, crunch echoed through our small living room as I watched the ornate burgundy saucer shatter into 4 large pieces and a thousand splinters more. 

What is wrong with me? I sat down helplessly on the gray blue sofa, tears immediately appearing. Two days ago I broke the glass charcoal bottle and now this. I wasn't usually this clumsy. Was it because I was under a lot of stress lately? I'm so sorry, I'm really so sorry. 

My husband reassured me that he could fix the saucer and not to worry about it. His mother had sent us a set of 6 the year before when his sister had gone home for the summer. I'd carefully placed them in a place of honour in the cupboard and brought them out each time we had a cup of tea or hot chocolate. They had survived tea around the bonfire and countless trips from the kitchen to the living room, and now this. 

I was reaching for the bag of nuts to refill my bowl when it happened. It was movie time and we were having our usual snack of the evening, this time it was mixed nuts a friend had so kindly given us when they dropped by to visit and pray for my sister-in-law who was still in the hospital. After our first round, I wanted a few more nuts but the bag was on the other side of the coffee table. As I grabbed it, the bag swung out, pushing the small saucer right off the table and onto the cream tile floor. It never had a chance. 

Just like she never had a chance.  

Two days later, my husband sat down at the kitchen table, heavy duty glue in one hand and the broken saucer in the other. We'd retrieved the large pieces and found a couple more fragments and he set about to try to patch them together. I remembered the story of the mended teapot my friend who'd lived in Pakistan wrote about. The teapot that was purposely broken, then fit back together with metal staples that was then sold as a thing of beauty. Would the glue do the trick?

Ten minutes later, after rearranging and holding the pieces together, my husband stared at his attempt to fix it. There was a nicked edge whose piece we could not find though we had searched under the sofa, coffee table, and bookshelf. The saucer was so delicate that the glue ended up pushing the pieces apart instead of holding them tightly together. Finally, he admitted defeat. It won't work, he said. Let's throw it away and buy another one. 

I sat with that saucer in my mind. Like the saucer, my sister-in-law had shattered in large pieces with fragments scattered about. She was missing a piece of her that, like the sauce, wasn't essential to holding her together but now marred her internal appearance. Here was where the resemblance ended, however. 

Though the saucer could not be repaired, she could. I held on to the promise of Matthew 8:2 when a man with a serious disease came to Jesus and asked to be healed. If You are willing. . .he had pleaded with the only Healer he had hope in. 

Jesus' response? 

He reached out with His hand, touched the man, and said I am willing. And in that moment, instantly, the man was healed. 

My husband could not wave a magic wand and instantly restore the broken saucer to its original perfection. Similarly, doctors could not perform a few surgeries, administer some medications, and my sister-in-law would be walking and talking and breathing like before. 

But there is a promise. And there is hope. Whether this promise will be realized in this life, we as yet do not know. But we can hold on to the knowledge that Jesus is willing for her to be healed. And one day, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, He will reach forth and then, then she will be restored. To perfection. Forever.