“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds”—Psalm 147:3 (NIV).
The sound of breaking glass made me cringe. I’d just broken my favorite pitcher because I was careless. I’d paid less than five dollars for it a yard sale. Its beauty had drawn me to part with my money.
Frustrated by my carelessness, I sighed as I cleaned up the mess of broken glass and spilled iced tea. When I cut my finger on a piece of the glass, I almost cried. I was tired. A lack of quality sleep the night before multiplied the incident into a disaster in my mind, until I reminded myself it was only a pitcher.
Later that day, I’d forgotten the pitcher, already tossed into the trash and ready for disposal. Then, I broke something else. I was digging in the dirt in preparation for some stepping stones in front of my backyard gate when I hit something solid. I bent down to remove several rocks and also encountered some tree roots. As I was hacking away at them with my shovel, I hit something else. Upon further examination, I realized I’d just severed my Internet line.
“Just great,” I thought. After cleaning up the mess, I called my Internet provider who informed me it would be the following Monday before it could be repaired. While I’d have to wait five days for the line to be fixed, the other bad news was the cost of the repair. I cringed when the company agent said, “It’ll be $149.”
“Oh well,” I said to myself, “there goes the three-day road trip I’d planned for the following week with my sister.”
A broken pitcher, a severed Internet line and a cancelled trip hovered over me like a gloomy cloud. You know the photo of Charlie Brown in the comics when things aren’t going his way? That’s how I felt. But it wasn’t long before I remembered why I should count my blessings.
I needed to use the Internet before the scheduled Monday repair. Neighbors let me bring my laptop to their house to connect and take care of writing business. God has blessed me with good neighbors.
On Monday, the repairman said he wasn’t going to charge me to fix the line because the previous crew hadn’t buried the line deep enough. Wow, more blessings!
The following day, I had to call my Internet provider with a modem problem. Not only did the company send someone out to replace my modem, they upgraded my Internet speed at no extra charge. My blessings overflowed.
That same day, I saw a Facebook post from a woman who had posted her mug shot. She’d once been imprisoned for drug abuse. What’s so amazing about this woman’s journey is how God has used her to help women who have been incarcerated and are now on the road from their own brokenness to healing.
God is in the healing and blessing business. He takes our brokenness, binds up our wounds and then uses us to bless others.