The truth stares me in the eyes, black and white.

I'll never be free of cracks.

Andrew Peterson sings it: "I am furrowed like the field. And I know that to be healed, I must be broken first."

These shattered bits of me all over the floor will never be flawlessly glued together.

Part of me thought college would fix me:

that I was slowly getting repaired by friendships and my job and various accomplishments.

I imagined an Erin without the faults. We all think it, that the most useful version of us (to God) is the perfected version.

But that is not true. And an un-cracked jar will never happen here in this land away from heart's home.

I know the scripture, how God uses weaknesses, how dependency on God is strength.

So I'm sometimes thankful for them, my weaknesses, but also, sometimes I just want to beat the ground and hide, from failure and people, from God.

And I am continually writing about this, I know, but do deep truths ever grow old and useless?

My greatest fear is this: that I will not "sing a song worth singing, write an anthem worth repeating." (Sleeping at Last)

So I drive through life with controlling hands, working hard to fight meaninglessness, determined to carry out my plan for purpose. But most days my broken heart makes me feel worthless, not worth repeating. My awkwardness and failures make me want to trash the song. They make me give up on myself... which is a good thing. Days when I fail myself are the days I am most turned to God. I cannot repair my broken heart, cannot even live with it, pump blood with it, and so I turn to my Father for help.

The Bible says it: when we are weak, then He is strong. It says to rejoice in weaknesses and trials. We have to believe in this to escape the darkness that drags us down, that tempts us to a sick kind of self-absorption that feels like humility.

Don't hide your broken, your scars, or hide because of your scars and faults.

God made you in His image, and in you, He has something special to give the world.

If we hide away, if we fall into fear, then we deny the world our gifts, and we deny the world Christ in us. He made us. And He has so many good plans for us, if we'll just step out of the way.

We are all just these flickering fires in the darkness. Here a moment and twinkling out the next. We burn for purpose, and we burn for a purpose. Whoosh. and it's out. One flicker is the brevity of our lives to eternity. Still, God treasures each person among the millions. Not one light in this sky of star souls goes unnoticed or uncared for.

One of my greatest joys as a 3-year-old was catching crickets in the squatty bushes lining our driveway up in Alexander City. Catch days like crickets, laughing and thankful for each one, each sun rising. Come out of hiding and embrace the gifts God gives you and the gifts that you can give the world.

Lights are not lit to be hidden under a bushel. And we are the lights of the world.

The more cracks we have, the more shattered we are, the greater the possibility of the light of Christ shining out, brilliant.

Hearts hidden away are protected, safe, but they grow hard and cold away from the Son. He calls us to lay our hearts on the table, to bleed them out on the crosses of our lives, for the people in our lives.

If we can have the courage, borrow it, beg it, to lay our shattered hearts out in burning light, to humbly spill our pieces in the open and love someone, everyone, vulnerably, then Jesus promises to redeem our brief flicker in the corridors of time. All these flickers will burn on brighter and brighter in endless joy in the city of lights.

What will we do with our days, with the broken heart in our back pocket, hidden from the world?

Hearts were never made to keep, to keep still. They were made to pump out our life, to be promised and vowed. They were not made to keep quiet, but to drum a song that shouts of life, of God.

We can live fearlessly broken because we are held together, held alive, not by our actions, but by Reckless Love who broke Himself for us.