Words to Grow On

Archive Devotions

October 18, 2004

"What is Your Gift?"

By:

Major Juanita Morrison

"He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds."

Psalm 147

All of us have particular skills or gifts. Perhaps it is working with your hands, with arts and crafts, or maybe it is cooking or baking.

Decorating is my gift. My husband has a special gift. His unique gift is the ability to break stuff. Trust me, experience has taught me, he is good at it.

When we lived in St. Louis , Mo. as newly weds, there was a window above our bed that opened outward into the room. I placed some decorative cups and saucers on the windowsill. Because it was frequently very hot in St. Louis , I often had to take them down to open the window for airflow. Each time I did I had to close and lock the window after I put them back.

One time I let my husband put them back. He closed the window and thought he locked it. A few days later a wind came up, blew the window open, and wiped all the cups and saucers off the sill and on to the hardwood floor.

After we became Salvation Army officers (ministers), our new Divisional Commander was coming over to visit. I had a dessert that I made on special occasions. It was Jell-o with fruit cocktail and whipped cream. I was mixing in the final ingredient, when my husband reached over my head to take the jar of instant coffee out of the cabinet. As he picked up the jar it slipped out of his hands and landed in my dessert, breaking the glass bowl.

In fact, he has raised breaking stuff to a fine art form. Now, he doesn't even have to be in the same room! I had a small elf figurine on a shelf in my office. He went in to get a book from the shelf that was above the elf. When I came to work, I found the little elf on the floor . . . broken. My husband pleaded innocence. He admitted to borrowing a book from my office. We noticed that the next book, a large one, had fallen over after he left. The thud had dislodged a book on the shelf below, which slid over and swept the elf off on to the floor.

Through the years, I have tried to fix some of the broken stuff. Years ago I used regular glue but the parts wouldn't stay in place to dry. Then as time went on I tried super glue, but found that the parts stuck to my fingers better than to each other. The few times I was able to get the object back together, it just didn't look good, so I ended up tossing it anyway.

In our lives we have many events that can cause us to be broken in heart and spirit. 'Brokenness' can be caused by loved ones or by burdens and sorrows that come into our lives.

Psalm 147:3 (NIV) says: "He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds." So when we find ourselves hurt and broken, we can come to Christ and He will heal us with His touch and put us back together again.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV) says: " Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Let God make the repairs; He does a better job!