Piece By Piece
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
What if restoration isn't about becoming someone new, but discovering the beauty already held within you?
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
— Mary Oliver
Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.
— Parker J. Palmer
Isaiah 43:19
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
Food For Thought
At the beginning of the summer, a friend asked if I would be interested in helping out in her stained glass studio.
It wasn't something I had ever really considered before. I have always loved stained glass—I even have a few pieces in the windows of my own home—but I had never imagined myself actually making it or working with it. And yet, when she asked, something inside me lit up.
Maybe it was the possibility of learning something completely new. Maybe it was the opportunity to spend time creating with my hands. Or maybe there was simply a part of me that had been waiting for an invitation.
So I said yes.
What I didn't realize when I walked into the studio was that the process of making stained glass hasn't changed all that much in hundreds of years. The tools may have improved a bit with technology, but the overall process and techniques have been passed down from one set of hands to another, connecting today's artists to people who practiced this craft centuries ago.
Most recently, I've been working on restoring antique pieces. There is something holy about restoration.
One of the windows I have been working on was originally created in 1915. More than a century has passed since someone first held those pieces of glass, carefully choosing where each one would go. The person who made it is long gone. I don't know their name. I don't know what their life looked like or what they were thinking as they worked. And yet, here I am, more than a hundred years later, holding the very pieces they once held.
In a strange way, it feels like time travel. Two separate lifetimes, two sets of hands, two people who will never meet—and yet, somehow, we are creating together.
There is something deeply humbling about that.
Restoration requires a different kind of creativity than making something new. You aren't starting with a blank slate. You begin with something that has weathered the years. Something may be cracked or broken, pieces may be missing, and the whole thing may be covered in the evidence of its long life.
You have to take it apart carefully. Clean each piece. Handle it gently. Pay attention to what can be repaired and what needs to be replaced. And then, slowly, patiently, you begin putting it back together.
I think that is part of what makes restoration feel so sacred to me. Because, in some ways, this is the work God is always doing in us.
We are not finished products. We are works in progress—sometimes beautiful, sometimes broken, always becoming. And God doesn't seem particularly interested in throwing away the pieces of us that have been weathered by life. Instead, God meets us there, handles us with care, and patiently reminds us that broken does not mean beyond repair.
This new creative practice has felt like more than simply learning how to make stained glass. It has reminded me that there is always more to discover about ourselves.
We can learn something new. We can become beginners. We can find gifts we didn't know were there. We can be surprised by what makes something inside of us come alive.
We can create alongside people we will never meet—people whose work, stories, faith, and creativity continue to touch lives long after they are gone.
A stained glass window, at its core, is a collection of pieces that could easily be seen as separate, imperfect, or broken. Yet, when carefully placed together, those pieces become something beautiful.
Maybe we are not so different.
Perhaps the invitation of faith is not to become something entirely new, but to remain open to what God might create from the pieces we already have. To trust that there is beauty still being made from our lives. To believe that restoration is holy work. To remember that the pieces that have been cracked, weathered, or broken are not worthless or beyond repair.
Maybe, even now, God is patiently, creatively, lovingly putting the pieces together—creating something beautiful from all that we have been, all that we are, and all that we are still becoming.
At the end of each day, take a few minutes to name one “piece” of your day—a moment that was joyful, difficult, surprising, frustrating, or unfinished. Instead of judging it as good or bad, simply offer it to God and pray, “God, what might you create with this?” Trust that even the ordinary or broken pieces of our lives can become part of something beautiful.
Choose one small thing this week that you’ve never done before—or something you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t made time for. It could be learning a new craft, cooking something unfamiliar, taking a different route, or simply asking someone a question you’ve never asked before. As you try it, pay attention to what comes alive in you, and remember: sometimes God meets us not in what we already know, but in our willingness to become beginners.
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
God of Restoration,
Help us trust that you are still at work in us, patiently gathering and restoring the pieces of our lives. Give us the courage to welcome what is new, the grace to honor what has been weathered, and the eyes to notice the beauty you are creating.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
What part of your life feels a little cracked, weathered, or unfinished right now—and how might you imagine God meeting you there with care?
Have you ever said yes to something unexpected and discovered a new gift, passion, or part of yourself in the process? What did that experience teach you?
If your life were a stained-glass window, what “pieces” would you see coming together to create the person you are becoming?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Have you ever tried something new and discovered that you really enjoyed it? What was it?
Sometimes things get broken, but that doesn't mean they have to be thrown away. Can you think of a time when something broken was fixed or made beautiful again?
If you could make a stained-glass window about your life, what colors, shapes, or pictures would you put in it—and why?
Meet This WEek’s Writer...
Kendall Grubb is our Chief Executive Officer! She, her husband, and their daughter are a military family who calls Nashville, TN home. Earning degrees in music and business administration from Belmont University, she jumps at any opportunity she gets to create something new and help bring it to life. From writing and performing music to leading TWT, she loves the power that song and story have to connect people from all walks of life!
To hear more from Kendall throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!