Let’s face it – if something is cracked it is no longer good.  I can’t think of a single item that increases in value once it becomes cracked.  Oh, it might still be useful – such as an egg.  Sometimes in the dozen that I buy, there are some eggs with fine cracks in them.  I can still use them.  But if you try to boil those cracked eggs, you will probably end up with a mess in the pot from an egg explosion.

The Liberty Bell is cracked.  It can ring but they are afraid to ring it, thinking the crack will lengthen.  It may be more recognizable as a cracked bell, but it is not a very useful bell if you are looking for a ringing sound.

A cracked windshield is bad.  You may still be able to look through it, but that crack will lengthen and weaken the windshield over time.

Cracked plates and bowls may have character, but they may crack even more when filled and even eventually break under pressure.

Cracked teeth are painful and unsightly, cracked open heads bleed a lot and need stitches, cracked sidewalks can trip a pedestrian, cracked vessels leak, cracked radiators in a car are bad news, cracked furnace heat exchangers are dangerous, and cracked ribs hurt.

Our house has some cracked bricks.  We think it is the rain and poorly draining gutters that spill water over the back of the house that has caused the bricks to flake or spall.  We have a brick planter on the front side of the house, and these bricks have been crumbling as well.  I’ve had visions of the back of the house suddenly crumbling and falling down like the wall around biblical Jericho!  We finally had a company come take a look at our cracks (ha-ha – I smell a joke there!) let me restate … we finally had a company come take a look at our cracked bricks and propose an affordable fix.  These guys busted out the broken brick and put in new ones.  Our front planter, back wall, and even a few broken chimney brick are now replaced.  It all looks very nice … and solid … and not cracked and ready to crumble.  They even had some simple fixes for us to help with the gutter/water problems in the back of the house.  Thanks guys!

And of course, all this business today of replacing cracked bricks made me think ….

What ‘cracks’ or flaws do we tolerate in our lives with hopes that things will still hold together?  If your marriage is being tested, are you going to fix the problems or let the marriage fall apart?  Are you suffering from some physical or mental illness that you are ignoring, hoping you won’t break apart before you get to the medical attention you need?  Do you have an addiction that is splintering away at your core and robbing you of self-control?  Are you harboring grudges and hateful, spiteful feelings towards a loved one that are slowing breaking your heart?

The cracked brick on the back of my house were not going to get better on their own.  It was a problem that was slowing getting worse, and the whole wall was eventually going to fall.  Fixing it now saved us a lot of future troubles and money.

Fixing the cracks and flaws in your life will spare you some grief, sorrow, and loss tomorrow.  They are fixable when they are small troubles.  But all the little problems act to weaken the whole.  Better to fix those little chips and chinks now before they explode into destructive tomorrows.

Isaiah 30:12-14 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:  “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.  It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”

just Laurel