12 July 2014 by Adeliyn Lim-
“He stole my heart and shattered it.”
“She took with her a piece of my heart.”
“I gave her my heart and got it back in shards.”
Listening to the others, I look at my own heart. I don’t remember a time it was ever whole. I suspect it was made broken at the very start of its existence.
Sure, it did looked whole at the start. When the pieces were large and gluing them together to simulate the look of being whole was easy. But it stopped looking whole after a while.
——
The situation where my mom scolded me for something someone else did. My heart was dropped. A chip fell away. My mom found out and apologized. That piece of my heart was glued back, but it was not where it was supposed to be. A jagged piece stuck out at an odd angle.
Grandpa died. I won’t be able to sit at the kitchen table making pork dumplings with him, watch him fry them, and share the bowl just for the both of us. The pieces were gathered but some tiny pieces got stuck to grandpa when he moved on to the next world.
Dad and mom were going through a rough time. My sister and brother were in charge of the house. I got slapped for something I said, and my glasses flew across the room. Along with my glasses, my heart scraped across the floor. No idea how to get the scratches out of it.
The girl I thought was my friend, who used me then framed me and got me into trouble with my favorite teacher. I got angry and flung it unto her body. It bounced off, but got chipped anyway.
Dad called me by my sister’s name. After living apart for nearly 4 years, he keeps calling me by her name, but never makes a mistake when it comes to her. Deeper and deeper, it drove the chisel to the very core of my heart. It drove home, and broke it in halves the day he denied loving her more than me – and tells me it doesn’t matter, as long we both knew whom he was talking to – that I was too sensitive.
This one took a long while for the glue to set.
Mom’s dying. I cried, pleaded and begged. I bargained, raged, and then cried some more. When I finally accepted and let go all decisions to God, I also gave Him a bag of everything I could find.
My heart came back, almost as it was before a long time ago, but the many of the pieces were not of the same color. I struggled to hold it. The glue was still quite wet.
The boy who came with flowers, poetry and heart of his sleeve to a girl who couldn’t believe in love. In my haste, I dropped it before it was fully dry.
It was the third time she totally dropped it. I picked the pieces and sent it for repairs again. When I got my heart back, she asked for it and immediately proceeded to take aims at it. I snatched it back and walked away.
——
I looked at my shattered, torn apart, pieced again, and mosaicked heart. I will have to put it on display, and am contemplating to put it in the hands of another again.
For the Heart is a curious thing. It needs to be held lightly, but firmly. It can nurture other hearts; repel many distasteful things, but breaks at a whisper of another heart. It can turn bitter, it can turn hard; it can be sweet, light and soft to the touch. Its weight, size and texture, varies from time to time.
But even more curious, is the fact that the heart needs to be held by another.
I look at Him, my ever-trustworthy Fixer. He gives my heart back to me, glue still not set, as usual. He pats me on the head, and sends me on my way.
I wonder about the next person who I will allow to hold my heart. I wonder if that person would take care to not drop it. I look at my hands and wondered if I could be entrusted to not drop his heart as well. I wondered if I would be strong enough to hold it, but not too hard that I create cracks in his heart.
I turned and looked my Fixer. I gestured for Him to take it back. He frowns and shakes His head. He opens up and shows me His heart. I recognize some pieces: My missing pieces. Wide-eyed, I looked at Him. He smiles, pats my head again, and walks me to the door.
Feeling a little dazed and amazed, I walk back to wherever I came from, broken but pieced-together-again heart in my hands.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:14-18)
Adeliyn Lim has oscillated between Kuantan, Penang and KL, currently working as a human resources specialist in a telecommunications company. She admits that the walk with God is at times like a walk on the beach in sunny weather and at times like stumbling on cobbled alleys on dark, stormy days. Her philosophy in life is, “Life is a bed of roses. Thorns included.”
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