I decided to spend a little time with a friend this afternoon who is awaiting some test results and needed a little "diversion."  Another friend came over to join us for a little time of floating in the pool and together we talked about everything from gardening to recipes to our children...

it was a wonderful day!

Tim stopped by to check on me (which honestly seemed a little strange) and asked if I had read his text.

I had not.

In it he had asked me to think of the top ten worst things he could have done while I was not at home.

My friend's first thought was, "He has wrecked your car."  I had no clue what to guess and insisted that he tell me what in the world he had done......

He proceeded to hold up this......

Do you recognize it?

Yes, it is the top of my new, wonderful, precious gift from Kim!  My praise flower had been broken!

Now, I'm not going to lie.  I laughingly screamed, "WHAT?!?!  I just wrote about my flower on my blog," to which one of my friends said, "Well, now you have something to write about tonight!"

In the scheme of life, this broken flower really means nothing.  I can replace my praise flower when I go to the bookstore on Friday.  Life will go on as normal.

But I couldn't help but think of how "ironic" or I'd like to believe "Providential" this event was today.

See, all weekend as I have driven around town and even taken Olivia to church camp, I have watched my flower dance and listened to KLOVE.  Over and over again I have heard about a contest that KLOVE is sponsoring right now where they are asking people to enter photos of themselves holding signs that say, "I am Living Proof of God's love because....." and then fill in the rest of the sentence.

I decided yesterday to enter the contest and had an idea of what I wanted to do, and I had already ask one of my friends to take the picture later today.  When Tim arrived with my broken flower, it truly overwhelmed me because of what I wanted my photo to communicate and, at the same time, what the broken flower meant to me on a spiritual level.

Tim was determined that he could fix my flower.  He went to one friend's house to try their gorilla glue (Is that how you spell that?!?!?).  It didn't work.  He tried Scotch tape at our house since it is clear.   It didn't work either.  Duct tape might have had a chance, but honestly, do I need a redneck praise flower....we use Duct tape for everything else at our house. I'd like to keep some things sacred.  In the end, we knew that the only way to have a working praise flower was to replace it with a new one.

Every part of this broken flower experience was speaking to me in a powerful way, because like the flower I am broken.  No one on this planet, not even Tim, can fix me.  No therapy, no counseling, no book, no minister......broken people are broken people.  Without the love of God, I would have stayed broken FOREVER.   Broken and unable to praise Him.

But because of His love, I can live whole again. 

Do I still cry?  Yes.

Do I still mourn?  Yes.

Do I still question?  Yes.

Do I still become discouraged at times, and even angry?  Yes.

But, by the grace of God, I feel whole.  By that I do not mean that I feel complete and normal.  I simply mean that God has filled my empty places with more of Him.

So much so that I can laugh again, I can smile again, I can love again.......

Do I understand how?  No.

Will I ever understand while I am on this planet?  I don't think so.

That's what I think it means in the Bible when it says He will give us a "peace that passes understanding."

So for tonight, I want to share the picture that my friend took of me this evening.

The picture I entered in the KLOVE contest in hopes of seeing Beth Moore again......the amazing Christian speaker who prayed over me in the spring of 2009 as we were both on our knees, and I was crying so hard I could barely breathe having just told her that I was tired of being angry......

After she prayed over me, she lifted my chin and said, "Look at me.  I prophecy in the name of Jesus that you will be whole...YOU WILL BE WHOLE."

At the time, I couldn't imagine what that would ever feel like.

But tonight as I think of replacing my broken flower with a new one, I think of how Jesus has created within me a "new heart" and I understand the wholeness that comes with grief.

It's not the same heart made whole.  That heart will always be broken.

It's a new heart sitting next to my broken one.

A heart that is so full of Him that I am able to dance in spite of my pain.

Believe me, my new praise flower will be placed right next to the broken one on the dash of my car as a constant reminder of today.

Is there a part of you that feels broken?

If so, turn to God.

His love alone is the answer.

Thankful for God, the Healer,