The Broken Sifter

Have you ever had that moment when everything that you once believed to be true, about something or someone , now sits in a heap on the floor in front of you?

Well, not literally. But, in your mind, you can see it laying there, pieces, broken and exposed.

From my bed, where I still sit perched at 9:30 in the morning on a Sunday morning, which seldom ever happens… I can see it all there… there is no escaping it really, it is there when my eyes are open it is there, and when they are closed it is there. Id love to just pull the covers up over my head and sleep the day away, but even in my dreams, the rubble can be seen.

There have been two profound “truths” that have filtered every day of my life… One is that I am a beloved child of God – – – a princess – – – – and for me, that truth with always stand… the second “truth” – which has proven to be a faulty truth and one that I don’t care to go to deeply into this morning as the pain is to raw – – – – too…….blinding… has been something I have kept myself wrapped in for over thirty years. It has protected me, shielded me, comforted me, and probably even hindered me, yet served as a cocoon for my heart. A promise I stood on, a shelter from life’s storms. So, today is an odd day for me, not sure how, yet, to move forward; liberated or crippled, I am not sure as  I am still dealing with the reality of it.

I have been thinking a lot the last couple of days about my old sifter… I love this old thing. I love everything about it. I even love that it is old and beaten up. For whatever the reason, it makes me happy, I can’t really explain it. I know that there are other sifter that are prettier, better, fancier, but.. yet, this one and I are, or have been, a happy little team. But, during it’s use while making the last batch of Zucchini Bread, something horrible happened. It broke. Not only broke, but broke beyond repair, it would seem. I sensed it coming.. each time I used it, I sensed it, but I guess denial kept me hoping against all hope. Then as if it were all of a sudden, I was faced with the choices of either tossing it away, which truth be told, wasn’t and isn’t an option, or finding it, it’s new proper place on a shelf, and replacing it with a newer, working model.

I hate the reality of those kinds of decisions. They aren’t really decisions, right?. It isn’t like you can go back and rewind life and choose to go back and have what is broken, not be broken… any more that I can choose to un-know, what I now know. You can however decided to replace it with one that is a new and improved version, or if you are like me, sit with it and test than theory that it cannot be fixed.

I spent much of the night pouring through the mountains of journals I have kept since I was a child, looking for signs of where I went wrong, where my thinking went faulty and I didn’t have the courage to correct it, my emotions fluctuating between mad, hurt, grateful, while continually searching the interne for patterns to make a voodoo doll… pins included.

After a very restless night I have come to the rather exhausting realization, THINGS BREAK. Things wear out. Even the most precious of things, take on different shapes, meanings, uses, over time. Your favorite dishes get chipped, a tea-pot cracks, and a sifter breaks. It is up to us how we choose to address it. As I sit here typing, wasting away the morning, feel the sun beckon behind the drawn shades, I know that I need to be grateful for all the things that this now broken sifter, as well as the broken truth, brought to my life.

I don’t yet know how I will move forward with the new knowledge that I have. The faulty truth has shaped every aspect of who I am. It has been one of the two truths that I think of first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night, and run to when life gets to big, or I feel too small, the salve’ I put on when the world becomes to painful, my soft place when life is to hard, my sifter when I need something to filter things  through.

Today I am left with two huge questions; 1). What does one do when everything one thought to be truth, is faulty? 2).How do you sift when your sifter is busted?

And even to my over analytical self, these questions seem to big to wrestle with today. So maybe, the answer is as simple as knowing that , there is only one truth that any of us need, and that is the full knowledge that I am a beloved child of God. Everything else may fail me, but this one truth will always stand the test of time, will always be the perfect comfort, protector, shield, soft place to fall and hide out.

What we think may kill us, or meant to hurt us, can in the long run make us stronger, equipping us to deal with the really hard issues of life, like a broken sifter.