Picking up the Pieces

In her play, “The Zeal of Thy House,” Dorothy Sayers portrays a stonemason working on an intricate carving for the chancel of the Canterbury Cathedral. While at work, the mason clumsily lets his hammer slip, and thus ruins the great piece of stone assigned to him. The result is heartbreaking, a valuable and custom-cut stone completely blemished.

Although the architect scolds him for his clumsiness, he also leaves a door open for a new beginning. Out of the ruined carving, he redesigns a new, albeit different figure, which has its own part to play in the beauty of the Cathedral. He then allows the careless mason to complete it in all its glory. The playwright concludes, ”So works with us, the cunning craftsman, God.”

Pastor Allan Weenink picked up on this story in one of his sermons. He made the point that “The Master artist God can take our blundering efforts and still make something useful out of them. He takes our mismanaged lives, our failed efforts, our missed marks, our shameful deeds, our alien attitudes, and our sinful lives, and out of his divine resourcefulness he saves the day by creating something new, worthy, and wonderful that still has usefulness and beauty in the divine plan of things.”

Over the years of ministry, I’ve seen this often enough to know that this is true. And so I pray today that you and I would ever keep our spirits open enough to allow the Master Craftsman to do his work in us.

Let us pray: Sometimes it feels as though life is falling apart, O God. We don’t always understand why things happen the way they do. But we trust that you are good. We trust that you are present in our pain and suffering. And we trust that you are already at work to heal and to make whole again. We pray today that you would redeem those broken, misshapen parts of our lives. And may your peace which passes all understanding rest gently on us this day. Amen.