“and she always had a way with her brokenness. She would take her pieces and make them beautiful.”

― R.M. Drake

So, when I was a little girl, I loved to color. In fact, I still love to color, but I don’t always take the time to do so, which now that I think about it I should work into my schedule because coloring has always been a relaxing and freeing activity for me, but I digress.

So again, when I was a little girl, I loved to color. Every color crayon Crayola ever created was in my possession. (Boy, that’s a tongue twister. Try saying that sentence 3 times fast…whew). But again, I digress.

Okay, so as a little girl I was just as organized as I am now, as an adult. Everything in my room had its own space and place, and I was very intentional about putting my things back where they belonged, including my crayons. I made sure to place each crayon back into the exact space I removed it from, and I sharpened them when they started to get flat or dull so that they always would stand tall in the box and look perfect.

One of my biggest pet peeves was to break a crayon, and if one of my friends broke my crayons, she would not be allowed to use them again. That may seem harsh, but that was how I rolled. Now, could I still color with the broken crayons? Of course I could but to me, a broken crayon was no longer perfect. It could no longer stand tall with its other crayon buddies in the box, which meant I had to remove it, which meant I had an empty space in the box, which meant my crayons were going to lean to one side, which drove me crazy so, I would stop using that box of crayons altogether and open up a new box. Yes, I had multiple boxes on standby. My grandmother may not have always been able to buy me the latest and greatest toys, but she could afford to buy me crayons, so I had boxes of crayons for days.

Sadly, our perception of ourselves is just like the one I held as a child; brokenness equals uselessness. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret, despite the bad things that have happened to you, despite how broken you are, or how incomplete you may feel, you are STILL useful.