The Broken Rake

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I was listening to Ganel-Lyn Condie this morning.  She was talking about how she and her family had just moved in to a new house when her sister committed suicide.  I'm sure it was a very difficult time, but with a new house, Ganel-Lyn and her family still had a yard to put in, and so they spent a lot of time raking.  During all of the work, one of the rakes broke.  It was still useful, but obviously broken.  As she thought about that rake she decided to hang it in her house.

It took a couple of days for her family to notice (I'm not sure where it was hanging).  When they did, they wanted to know why she had hung up a broken rake.  She said that it was to remind them that it needed to be okay in their family to have a broken part.  To be broken.  That everyone needed to know that, even broken, they were useful.

I've mentioned before that we are all broken in some way.  Some of us may be more obviously broken than others, but everyone is broken.  I liked this story and the reminder that, even broken we are useful.  Even if we aren't as useful as we want to be -- we still can make a difference for good!

***Photo by Tom Byrom on Unsplash