The Shattered Pieces
I started with the “Pieces of Me” series back in May. Then it was exams and wedding planning and work and and and….
So yes, somewhere along the way I got lost (again) in the hustle and bustle of life. If you want to recap on where it start, please read the introduction
But here I am now, back with the next piece in this series.
If you want to recap on where it start, please read the introduction
I don’t really remember the first time something inside me broke.
I just remember the girl with big eyes, and a bigger heart, daydreaming under fruit trees in the orchard, soaking in the afternoon sun while eating a ripe sweet peach that she picked from a low hanging branch. Then suddenly learning, very early on, how to stay quiet.
How to make myself just small enough not to be noticed.
How to smile when everything hurt.
There wasn’t one big shattering.
It happened slowly — over years, over words, over looks that said you’re too much or not enough.
Sometimes the breaking came dressed as love.
Sometimes it came as anger.
And sometimes, it was just silence — the kind that makes a child believe she’s invisible.
It continued into adulthood with more harsh whispers after dark. With manipulation. With blame, rejection, deception.
I learned to read the room before I could read my own heart.
To anticipate moods, to avoid being the reason someone slammed a door.
To fix, to please, to perform — anything to keep the peace.
I became the good girl. The reliable one.
The one who never cried in front of anyone, because tears just made things worse.
But somewhere in all that pretending, I began to lose sight of who I was.
I learned to measure my worth by how well I could hold it all together. I learned to measure my worth by how busy I could be.
To hide the cracks beneath good grades, pretty smiles, and perfect manners, by anticipating needs, by serving.
No one told me that being strong isn’t the same as being safe.
Years later, I’d look back and wonder why I always felt disconnected — like I was watching my own life from a distance. Even now, at times I catch myself in the middle of a group of people, but I’m not really “there”. Different parts of my brain scan different parts of the room, following conversations, pre-empting what could go wrong.
I’d blame myself for not knowing how to belong, not realizing that the little girl in me still stood there, frozen at the point of breaking.
Still waiting for someone to notice that she was hurting.
But even in those moments — when I felt unseen, unheard, unloved — God was there.
Not shouting, not demanding… just there.
Close, even when I couldn’t feel Him.
Whispering, I see you. You are not invisible. You are not what they said.
It’s taken me years to make peace with the shattered parts.
To stop sweeping them under the rug or pretending they never existed.
To hold them up to the light and see how the cracks catch His glory.
Because here’s what I know now:
Every broken piece became a doorway for grace.
The Lord really is close to the brokenhearted.
Not because He’s waiting to fix you, but because He never left you — even when you broke.
And maybe the miracle isn’t that He puts us back together,
but that He teaches us how to love the pieces we once tried to hide.
These are the shattered pieces.
And they are holy too.
Which are your shattered pieces?
How do you need to learn to treat them as building blocks for the best that is yet to come?
