It’s Christmas!

So, of course, my family is enjoying the process of pulling out ornaments we’ve collected through the years and safeguarded for posterity’s sake 🙂 These are special treasures of time – a preschool craft, a specially designed momento, a uniquely-perfect gift.

So….it is ironic that just this morning one of my favorite ornaments fell from the top of our gorgeous tree and smattered into seven different pieces. It’s a sphere-shaped ornament, hand-crafted to display amatuer representations of each member of my family from 2011. It’s personal. It shows our family. I MADE it.

And now it’s broken.

As I worked to piece back the ornament, which will clearly not go back together into its original form, I was reminded of my upcoming release, The Thorn Healer.

Why?

Because it’s all about healing.

But unlike my ability to get this ornament back into perfect shape, God is able to make things new.

Completely restored….or even better.

By the use of my own skills, I can only do so much to fix this keepsake. It will still look cracked and damaged, and I’m certain it will still have a hole in the back because some of the pieces were crushed too small to replace, however God (through Christ) restores our brokenness of soul and spirit to even better than what it was before.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and the new has come.”

Ultimately, God is out to set things right in his vast creation. In Revelation 21:5, he says “I am making all things new.”

We are in a world of broken people and broken things. Many times the wounds and scars of others spill over to wound and scar us. And, let’s face it, we’re pretty good at bringing pain on ourselves too.

Our own works, strength, smarts…whatever, will never be enough to ‘make us new’ and completely heal our hearts and lives.
But Christ can do much better than my shattered ornament and man-made glue can do.

He can take the most broken heart

the most shattered spirit

the most confused mind

and make them new

Because of His great love.

My character, Jessica Ross, learns this lesson and God continues to teach it to me on a daily basis.

May His healing arms of love take our brokeness and make us new by His grace.