Fixability

You can’t fix her.

The words suggest that “she” is broken.  “She” is flawed.  “She” is wrong.

And her state is irreversible.

Broken, flawed, wrong…worthless.

Am I really so broken…so intrinsically flawed…so deeply wrong that I would be found worthless?  Does my family find my life worthless…not worth the time or love it would take to restore me to a state of…

“Fixedness”?

What does it mean to be fixed?  Does it mean that I fit the mold set forth for me by countless years of Southern gentlewomen–college, marriage, baby, settle?  Does it mean that I got to church and have “my” pew where I sit every Sunday?  Does it mean that I work a job with a title that everyone has heard of?  Does it mean that I bring in enough money to live comfortably and take a vacation to New Orleans every summer?

What does it mean to be fixed?

I know that my uncle didn’t mean for these words to cause pain.  That he didn’t expect them, passed on from my mother’s lips, to ripple through my heart and touch the most painful places.  Those places that are already suggesting that I have failed…that I am broken and flawed and wrong.

But the words did just that and I am left to reflect on the current state of my life.  As I reflect, the only conclusion I can come to is that God has a plan.  And I am comforted by his words alone:

“For you created my inmost being.  You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

(Psalm 139:13)

 

God would not create something worthless.