Fragile Things

Just yesterday as I was cleaning the windows of the bakery I work at, I peered through the glass and saw a spider, gently dangling from it’s intricately woven web. I thought, how strong that web must be to support the weight spider and it’s prey, and yet how delicate and gentle it is to the outside world.

You or I could take down that web, that web that took hours of work, with the brush of our hand. I find that sort of fragility beautiful.

It’s demonstrated so often in life-

Like when we were little kids and we balanced a fragile egg on a spoon, running to the finish line carefully, knowing how easily the egg could break. Yet, the capability of the egg to cultivate a tiny life was powerful in ways we could not grasp. Or, as we’re told, the fact that one beat of a tiny butterfly’s wings could fashion a hurricane across the ocean. The dandelions we picked, and so easily spread it’s seeds with one quick breath from our lungs. 

Among the most fragile things I find the human heart. It pumps and beats for a lifetime, scarcely faltering. It is strong in purpose, keeping the human body alive and functioning well. Yet it is so easily broken and bruised. It is ever-prone to feeling the effects of the words spoken to it carelessly, and sometimes, it doesn’t forget them. However, the human heart is capable of feeling the most immense joy, ultimate bliss, complete delight, and purest love.

Isn’t it ironic? The most fragile things in life are often so very strong. 

I think of the popular verse: “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” -2 Corinthians 12:10

After reading that verse I feel as if I can let out a sigh of relief and rest. I am reminded that I don’t have to be strong all the time. I don’t have to carry the weight of this world. In fact, I wasn’t created to. I was formed and fashioned to be the weak, sensitive, fragile girl that I am- so that true Strength could be seen so evidently within me. 

The greatest mystery to me is that Jesus, God in the flesh, was the perfect embodiment of fragility. He was such a perfect example that he was called a Lamb. Yet within the Lamb of God was the fullness of divine power and strength. Jesus said to his disciples hours before his crucifixion, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”  (Matt. 26:53).

Yes, He could have. But instead, he was “led like a lamb to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7). Love led him there, and love held him to that cross for you and me. 

Do not underestimate the true strength that can be found in your fragile heart. Don’t allow this world to convince you that you must be a concrete-hearted person to get places in this life. God’s promise to us is that when we are weak, He is made strong in us. When we embrace fragility, we allow God’s glory to radiate from us.

Realize that your delicate and fragile self was made that way so that other’s could look at you and see God working in your life.  Fragility will allow you to truly empathize with others in their darkest nights. It will allow you to experience life fully, with the knowledge that you have the Strongest set of arms waiting for you to fall back on.

“I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.”

-Tennessee Williams

-Sammie Marie