Cracked Mortar

Read

Psalm 147:3 "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

Think

Lisa and I bought a house years ago that was about fourteen years old. It looked great from the outside. Fresh paint. Nice landscaping. Clean lines. When we walked through it the first time, everything seemed solid. The sellers were warm, friendly people. They sat us down in the living room near this big stone hearth and talked about what a wonderful home it had been for their family.

We bought the house. And on move-in day, as we were unpacking boxes, I noticed something. The mortar between the stones on that hearth was cracked. Not just a little. It was crumbling in places. I looked closer and realized the damage extended behind the surface. The inspector had missed it. The sellers had seen it, though. That is exactly where they were sitting when they showed us the house. They had positioned themselves right on top of the damage so we would never see it.

I have thought about that cracked hearth hundreds of times since then, because it is one of the most accurate pictures I have ever encountered of how people handle brokenness. We sit on it. We position ourselves carefully so that nobody can see the cracks. We put on a good coat of paint. We arrange the furniture just right. We smile warmly and talk about how wonderful everything is, how blessed we are, how great things are going. And underneath it all, the mortar is crumbling. The foundation is giving way. And we keep sitting there, hoping nobody asks us to stand up.

The psalmist writes, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." That is one of the most beautiful promises in all of Scripture. But notice what it requires. It requires brokenheartedness. It requires wounds. In other words, it requires honesty about the damage. God does not heal what you refuse to reveal. He does not bind up wounds you insist on hiding. The healing begins when the covering stops.

Here is what I have noticed about people. We carry an unbelievable amount of damage and we develop an equally unbelievable skill at concealing it. We walk into church on Sunday morning with cracked mortar behind every smile. We walk into the office on Monday morning with wounds we have been bandaging ourselves for years. And nobody knows. We have become experts at sitting on the hearth.

Everybody carries baggage. Every single person you meet is hauling something. Past hurts, old wounds, broken trust, unresolved grief, buried shame. Some people carry designer luggage and some people carry beat-up duffel bags, but everybody is carrying something. The question is not whether you have baggage. The question is what you are doing with it.

Most of us do one of two things. We either pretend the baggage does not exist, or we let it define everything about our lives. Neither one is what God intended. Pretending leads to isolation because you can never let anyone close enough to see the real you. Letting it define you leads to paralysis because every decision gets filtered through wounds that were never healed. God offers a third option. Bring it to him. All of it. The cracked mortar, the old wounds, the heavy bags. Bring it all to the one who heals the brokenhearted.

I love how the psalmist puts two actions together. He heals and he binds up. Healing is the internal work. It is the restoration of what was broken on the inside. Binding up is the external care. It is the gentle, attentive wrapping of a wound so that it can mend properly. God does both. He does not just patch the surface the way those home sellers did. He gets underneath the hearth. He addresses the foundation. He replaces the crumbling mortar with something that will hold.

But you have to get off the hearth first. You have to stand up and admit what is underneath. That is the hardest part for most of us. It feels safer to sit there. It feels more comfortable to keep covering. But comfort is not the same thing as health. And a house with a cracked foundation is not safe just because nobody can see the damage.

Lisa and I had to get that mortar repaired. It was not cheap, and it was not quick. The contractor had to pull out all the old material and rebuild from the inside. But when it was done, that hearth was stronger than it had ever been. Stronger than the day it was first built, because now it was repaired by someone who knew exactly where the damage was and exactly what it would take to fix it. That is what God does with broken hearts. He does not just patch them. He rebuilds them stronger than they were before the break. But it starts with getting off the hearth.

Apply

Get off the hearth – Identify one area of brokenness in your life that you have been covering up. It might be an old wound, an unresolved hurt, or a grief you never processed. Today, bring it to God in honest prayer. Name it specifically. Then consider sharing it with one trusted person – a pastor, a counselor, a friend who will pray and not judge you.

Pray

God, I have been sitting on the hearth for too long. I have been covering up damage that you want to heal, and I have been pretending that everything is fine when it is not. I bring you my brokenness today. All of it. The wounds I have hidden, the hurts I have buried, the cracks I have been concealing from everyone around me. You are the healer of the brokenhearted. You bind up wounds. So I ask you to do that work in me. Rebuild what is broken. Replace the crumbling mortar with your strength. I trust you with the foundation of my life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.