Episode 263: Quick Chat - Making Something Beautiful from the Broken and Discarded Stuff of Life

Episode 263: Quick Chat - Making Something Beautiful from the Broken and Discarded Stuff of Life

Welcome to the Love Your Story Podcast. Today we are starting off the new Quick Chat series - this is the first one. Let me know what you think of it. It's one inspirational idea in 15 minutes or less.

I’ve always loved thrift shopping. I think it started because I’ve carefully budgeting has been important to me and I love a bargain. I have no serious problem with sharing clothes that have been warn by someone else - just wash them first. I’ve found wonderful treasures, unexpected booty, every summer at yard sales. Every year I find the woman who is retiring all her craft supplies and I buy everything from ribbon, to tiny brads, to unopened packages of name-brand card stock, to perfectly cellophane wrapped embellishments that would be a perfect addition to my card making supplies - my art is making hand-made cards. I take the discarded supplies and make beautiful hand-made cards that I send all over the country, sell, or trade. I dare say that half the holiday accouterment for my home has also been purchased from women who set up tables in their yards to find new homes for the things they were tired of and make a buck doing it. This type of sharing, of recycling, feels fun and woven with hope that you’ll find the perfect treasures for pennies on the dollar. In this way we use and reuse - enjoy an item while it is with us and then set it free to continue it’s life in a fresh new space with someone else who will love the novelty of seeing it anew.  

The discarded finding new life through new eyes.

My first dog was an black, curly, eight pound miniature poodle. My ex-husband’s sister had somehow ended up with brother and a sister puppies, and the little miss had been pushed around by her brother, who was slightly larger, as well as the four little boys in that family that thrived on teasing and rough housing. Molly-dog wasn’t doing well.  On a weekend when MY boys were with their dad I got the phone call.

“Can we bring home a dog?  It’s really nice and little and I promise we’ll take care of it. Just for a few days?”

I told them absolutely not. I wasn’t going to deal with puppy puddles and shedding in my house. Never. They continued their plight: “She doesn’t shed, she’s been potty trained, she comes with her own kennel, dog dish, and she’s had all her shots.” 

“Please mom! Just for a couple days while Tina and Doug are in town?” 

I allowed with the agreement that she’d stay in the garage at nights and that she could only stay for two days.  That darling, bullied little dog never left, and never spent one night in the garage. From the day she entered the front door, until she died years later, she rarely, if ever left my side. She was always afraid of other dogs, and people. But, I was her person. And what an honor that was. 

The something beautiful that came from this bullied puppy, failing to thrive in her current home, was a love of my life. We made a beautiful life together, and as is often the case with dogs, we think we are giving them a home, but they become the home for our hearts. Something very beautiful came from the broken.

My own life isn’t so different from these spaces of working with the broken and discarded to create something better, even infinitely more precious. After three marriages and three divorces, broken is a word I understand. Broken heart. Broken home. Broken dreams. These are words we hear all the time but each one of them is loaded with heavy burdens and crippling, dark days. I think it’s fair to say we all know the word ‘broken,’ for life  is always full of unexpected challenges, and everyone will have dark-nights of the soul. But here’s what I found…. years later and with focus and effort I built something better on the ashes of those relationships. I built a woman who knows she can get through hard things. I built a heart that I know survives. I built a home of safety and love for my children and myself. I built a life with stories shifted to consider the things I’d learned rather than one that was stuck in “he did me wrong” victimhood. On the ashes of a life torn down over and over I kept rebuilding. 

That’s not to say that I haven’t had to take down and rebuild to get it right, or that making it beautiful isn’t an on-going process, it is. But that’s the way of it.

When I walked with my best friend Molly-dog and she sprang through the green grasses of the park while I looked up at the beautiful mountains that surround my home and watched the seasons change, day after day, month after month, we built something beautiful.

When I comb through a thrift shop or a yard sale finding those things I can use to make my home beautiful or that I can transform into handmade cards that share love, I take the thing someone else discards and create something beautiful -with a little effort, a little vision, and some heart.

Making something beautiful from the broken discarded stuff of life is what we do. It’s a bit of alchemy. It’s the power of love, vision, and hope.

Thanks for listening today to my Quick Chat thoughts. What beauty are you creating from the broken and discarded stuff of life? Think about it.

We’ll see you in two weeks for the next episode of the Love Your Story podcast. Join me for another great interview - another great story. 

Find all the episodes on www.loveyourstorypodcast.com