Breaker

This morning I was thinking about breaking things.  Yesterday I dropped my super expensive plastic covering to our bulletin board at work-and broke it.  As I unscrewed it, I forgot to support it, so it crashed to the ground.  I was so mad at myself.  I've tried to be so careful during this past year every time I put up the student's pictures and calendar.  And yet I was careless, clumsy, distracted...something resulting in huge cracks and chips that cannot be repaired.  I hid it in back of our maintenance dude's shed.  I'm sure it needs to be thrown away.  Anyway-I need to get a new one.  I think it can be replaced.  In the meantime-we'll just have to do without it and hope the students won't touch and mess up the calendar right.  Impulse control- right?

I break things-all the time.  When I do, I feel horrible, but usually shake it off and chalk it up to another Erin mishap.  However about 4 years ago, while decorating my bathroom walls with a couple of my mother's "blue plates," the nail supporting it gave way and it came crashing down on the tiled floor.  This time, I was devastated-I literally felt pain inside.  This plate was so special to me. These "blue plates" are my mother's heirlooms.  My brother, sister, and myself-we all want them. She has often said that we can only have them after she dies. It was a big deal for me to receive a couple of them early when I was making my dream blue and white kitchen.  I wanted this space to remind me of my mother-blue onion wallpaper, blue and white tiles, blue and white ceramics etc.  These plates not only represented my mother's love of all things blue and white, but it also represented a yearly tradition in my parent's marriage.  They would go to Ports of Call in Long Beach to a special antique store and buy one Bing and Gondahl collector's/plate on their wedding anniversary.  They were expensive yet my father honored my mother's desire to collect them-whatever Sandy wants.  For me these plates represented not only my mother but also their marriage relationship.  I treasure them.  

The one I broke happened to be my favorite one...of course.  It depicted a mother and child at the piano singing.  My mom taught me to sing alto while singing hymns at church.  My mom bought the piano for her children.  She paid for and took me to piano lessons, My mom encouraged me to express myself through music.  The plate was a symbol of all those things.  When it lay broken at my feet, I fell to the ground and wept.  Not just a little. I was flooded with emotion-reminding me of my own broken family of divorce. Like Humpty Dumpty-all the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn't put it back together-there were too many pieces.

I swept the plate up but could not throw it away.  Instead, I placed all the pieces in a cloth napkin and put it in a drawer for safe keeping.  Though broken, it remains a treasure.  I suppose I could go online and replace it-but I won't.  The new one wouldn't have the same history or meaning.  I would like to find a way to use the pieces in some type of mosaic tile project.  I haven't done it yet, but I will someday-find the right glue and the right fitting to honor this broken ceramic pieces.

I also desire to find the right glue and the right fitting to honor my broken family.  I would never throw away anyone in my family, including my former husband.  I treasure each piece.  They cannot be replaced.  They are precious and worth keeping.  My family will never look the same as it did when we were all living under the same roof.  We are scattered, yet we can gather.

President Eyring talked about the gathering of God's family in his last conference talk.  He states,"Our Heavenly Father is anxious to gather and bless all of His family.  While He knows that not all of them will choose to be gathered, His plan gives each of His children the opportunity to accept or reject His invitation. And families are at the heart of this plan."

Light, love, and covenant keeping are the right glue.  God's great plan of happiness/salvation and priesthood ordinances are the right fitting.  There is a way to humpty dumpty family back together again.  And it will be glorious and beautiful.