In the Duality of Cracks

Broken places always catch my attention. Maybe because I know what it's like to live with cracks no one else can see. But sometimes, right in the middle of what feels worn down, something unexpected reaches through.

Not because the brokenness is gone; but because even there, life finds a way to grow.

And when it does, it reminds me: healing doesn't erase the cracks. sometimes it grows right through them.

Hope doesn't wait for the brokenness to heal. It grows with it.

Some kinds of life only grow through cracks. Today, I saw it.

Handprints, barely there... soft and fading, like someone who passed through and left a part of themselves behind.

A wall, broken open, peeling, fragile under the weight of time.

A piece of silver duct tape stuck to it.

Its purpose is unclear...

it doesn't fix the crack,

it doesn't heal the damage.

it just sits there,

a reminder of all the ways we try to patch ourselves up,

holding pieces together with things that were never meant to save us.

I thought about the ways I've done it too;

reaching for anything that promised relief,

anything that made the brokenness feel smaller, even for a moment.

But the cracks stayed.

They always do when we try to heal without Him.

And still...

even here...

something green grows.

Small.

Quiet.

Reaching up through the brokenness,

not waiting for the wall to be whole again.

I'm a witness of this.

I know what it's like to be worn down,

broken inside, and yet slowly rebuilt...

because of Him.

I know that handprints don't just mark where we've been hurt.

They can also be the places where He touched us,

where His fingerprints shaped

something new in the places we thought were ruined.

This kind of healing isn't loud.

It's a tender defiance.

A quiet strength that says:

"I am not giving up, because He is holding me."

It's the kind of hope that doesn't wait

for the cracks to disappear;

but grows with them,

through them,

because of them.

The world tells you to hide the broken parts,

to pretend you're whole,

to tape over the damage.

But He meets you inside the fracture.

And from there...

He calls life out of you.

Somehow, even in the ruins,

even in the places that feel forgotten,

there is still life,

still light,

still a tenderness stronger than

anything that tried to break you.

This is the beauty of the duality of cracks.