The Fragrance of My Breaking

🕯️ I woke this morning to a word I didn't go looking for. It was simply there, waiting on my timeline, shared by Uncle Rodney. Not a stranger, not something I stumbled across while searching for encouragement, but someone woven into my life, quietly sliding something across the table the way a father does and trusting it would find its way home. No explanation or comment, so I don't know what prompted him to share it, or whether he realised how deeply it would reach me. Still, it felt as though it had my name written on it.

It was Lynn H.'s The Fragrance of Her Crushing, and before I'd even reached the end, something in me gave way. It wasn't sadness, not exactly. It felt more like a dam wall that had held for a very long time finally deciding it no longer needed to. The tears came at breakfast and haven't really stopped. Here I am in the afternoon, cup of tea gone cold beside me, still leaking grace.

✍️ The piece speaks of a woman crushed like myrrh, pressed in secret where only her Beloved was watching. "She was hidden for a season," it says, and that line settled somewhere deep. I know something about being hidden. Giving, serving, creating, loving and carrying, while quietly wondering whether anyone truly sees the person behind all those helping hands.

Then, in that very hiding place, He called her beautiful. Not useful. Not capable. Not indispensable. Not the woman who always manages to hold everything together. Not the one who fixes everything. Beautiful.

She doesn't arrive empty-handed either; she arrives carrying oil. I read that and wondered, Lord, could it be that the years of pain, prayer, perseverance and healing haven't been wasted after all?🤔

This year has felt like a holding pattern. Doors opening a crack and then going still. Groups paused, invitations waiting, my book asking me to finish it from a healed place rather than a hurried one. I've smiled through most of it and called it trust, and it has been trust. Still, some part of me had quietly wondered whether being hidden meant being overlooked.

🕊️ Over these past weeks, so many kind words have come my way before and after the Convention. People have spoken about excellence, contribution and generosity, and I'm truly grateful. This was different. It didn't speak to what I've accomplished but to what I've endured; not to the work of my hands, but to the hidden places of my heart. I think the tears are coming from the part of me that has been strong for so many years while longing simply to be held.

🪨 Years ago, I made a vow that I wouldn't cry. Today it seems my heart has quietly laid that vow down. Here is the truth I'm holding onto: tears aren't failure, and they aren't a sign that something has gone wrong. Sometimes they arrive when words finally give shape to feelings we've never quite known how to express.

I don't need to find one tidy spiritual explanation for every tear either. Some of them may be exhaustion, some grief, some relief, some recognition, and some the simple wonder of feeling safe enough to let go. Every one of those layers can be brought to Jesus.

I've always loved the woman in Bethany who broke her alabaster flask over Him. Today I noticed something I'd somehow missed: the jar had to break for the fragrance to fill the room. Sealed, it was precious; broken, it became worship. Nothing was wasted, not the cost, not the pouring, not even the shards left on the floor.

I think of my studio, of kintsugi bowls with their golden seams catching the light. The gold doesn't hide where the pottery broke; it honours it. Perhaps what undid me this morning wasn't the language of crushing at all, but the possibility that my breaking hasn't made me any less precious to God. He doesn't sweep the shards away in embarrassment. He kneels down, gathers each piece, and fills every crack with something more precious than the clay ever was.

📖 "You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?" — Psalm 56:8 (NKJV)

🕯️ What a picture of His attentiveness. Not one tear is beneath His notice. Perhaps today isn't about another thing I need to do, understand, overcome or accomplish. Perhaps today I'm simply being given space to weep, and to discover that I don't have to apologise for a single tear.

So today, I'm allowing myself the grace of curling up on the couch, knees drawn close, tears rolling down my cheeks until the floodgates close and the tears dry up on their own. If that means a headache and a blocked nose, I'll simply let it be. There's no deadline on healing and no tidy schedule for release. Like a little one curled up in a parent's lap, I'm letting myself be small today, held by the One who isn't in a hurry.

A feather drifted past the window earlier, slow and unhurried, and I smiled through wet eyes. Not everything that falls is lost. Some things fall so they can be noticed. Some things fall so they can be carried.

🌱 I'm still sitting with one question: which words broke through the walls first?🤔 Was it the crushing, the hidden season, being called beautiful, the unveiling, or the thought of finally being seen and loved without having to prove anything?🤔 I suspect the answer will show me what my heart is grieving, receiving or beginning to release. There's no need to rush it. I do know this: I'm not the woman I was at the start of this year. Something has been refined in the secret place, and I'm beginning to believe that when He calls "Rise up, my love… and come away," He means me.