A Broken Broom

By Maria H., on mission in Honduras

Every Friday morning, we do a deep cleaning of our house and this particular week was my turn to clean our Chapel (yay! I get to work with Jesus! Sometimes I feel like a Benedictine: Ora Et Labora!) After I took everything out, I started to look for a broom to sweep out the room. Now I began my mission with 3 brooms here in the house, however, as I complete 4 months of mission, we only have 1 fully functional broom. So, I was obviously looking for the functional one, but my sister of community was using it. I found another broom off to the side of the house whose handle had snapped in two. My wonderful brother of community (Joseph) had taped the handle back on. 

While I was sweeping the chapel, I was thinking how impractical it is to use such a broom. But I started to realize that with a little bit more attention, effort and patience this broom accomplished what it was made for. It swept the dirt out of Jesus’s house. When the home of Jesus needed to be cleaned and there was no other broom, I was able to use this one which was available and, even though it was far from perfect, it was able to be used to make the home of Jesus just a little bit shinier. While using the broom, I thought: aren’t we just like this broom in the hands of God? Does He not use us to make His home of El Pedregal, of North Carolina, the world, and in the heart of each person a little bit brighter? Do we make ourselves available to do the job we were created for? Are we willing to be vulnerable with God and to let ourselves be used in spite of our brokenness?