“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”

How about the story of Banksy’s “Girl With Red Balloon” painting that upon its auction sale of $1.4MM automatically shredded itself (or at least 1/2 of itself).  A ploy by someone for sure.  To make the painting more valuable?  Possibly as anyone in the art world will forever recognize the only one of this Banksy painting to have been shredded. I haven’t read anything about the buyer being unhappy.  I think she/he is now ecstatic because this piece of art now has an experience and story surrounding it. It’s a good lesson for us.  Our products and services will always be more valuable if someone can tell a story about the uniqueness of what they have received.

This is God’s story too for us.  There aren’t many stretches of time that we won’t feel like we have been beaten down, depressed, exhausted and “shredded” by people and events that are outside of our control. And like the Banksy painting event, when we least expect it.  But, what is different is that God can always put us back together and in that restoration, we also become more valuable to Him and our experience and story becomes something that He can use to expand His Kingdom.

Reference:  Psalm 34:18 (New Living Translation)