I recently went to Atlanta with my daughter who was hired for a film project that did not go according to plan. We were heading home after several rainy days in a hotel waiting on news of where and when we needed to be on set which changed constantly. We were happy to be heading home but it had been a long, rainy, trying week on many levels. 

As she slept in the passenger seat, I carelessly took a deep dive into my frustrations, to the tune of “why why why…”, my usual go-to whiney session. It plays in my head something like this:

Why does everything have to be so complicated?

Why can’t people be more considerate?

Why do we live in a perpetual state of changes and cancellations?

Why won’t this rain stop!?

(continue this line of questioning and pity-party in a 15 minute drone…)

Just then, on the side of the road I notice a big billboard that reads

BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CRACK IN YOUR FOUNDATION

“Huh,” I thought. Well that was loud and clear!

I had Fr Mike Schmidtz playing as we drove and he was just talking about self-pity in one of his Sunday homilies. In another homily, he was discussing how “stuff happens”, but the way we look at the stuff, our perspective, it what makes it more intolerable sometimes. 

Foundational Cracks in Humanity

The billboard first threw me back to Adam and Eve in the garden.

There exists serious darkness in the world that we cannot control because someone ELSE thought they knew better than God. The serpent. And then he convinced Eve to question God too, and Adam followed after.

But God, in His incredible wisdom and goodness, gave us true freedom, which meant letting us choose for ourselves, even if it meant we ousted ourselves from the beautiful safety of His garden. 

Going To The Places of His Mercy

A great way to more deeply understand something in the bible, or even in life, is to go there in prayer with Jesus. This is partially what is done in healing prayer sessions. I wanted to go back to that garden and put myself there in prayer. I read something I had never noticed before. After “the big mistake” and after God explained how they had chosen to separate themselves from Him and would be cast out of the garden, He did something so beautiful. He clothed them.

²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ 

Gen 3:21-23

Here is the Loving Father, realizing His kids are choosing to sin by their actions, and what does He do? He puts good protective clothing on them. He doesn’t remove Himself from their cracked foundations. He wraps them up in mercy.

He did the same for Cain, even after he killed his brother Abel out of envy. Before letting Cain out into the wild, however, God again tends to the cracks in Cain’s foundation and clothes him with protection…

¹⁰ The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. ¹¹ Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

¹³ Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. ¹⁴ Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

¹⁵ But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. ¹⁶ So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,^[f] east of Eden.

Gen 4:10-16

I could go on with many Old Testament stories of Noah, David, The Israelites, Jonah, and the new testament stories of the Prodigal Son, etc. The fact was that yes, everyone has cracks. Reality is messed up. We choose wrongly and we rarely think to take stock and ask “what is my part in this?” But God gives mercy we do not deserve, and He gives it to us endlessly. When I feel sorry for myself, I have not taken account of this.

Just in Case You Didn’t Hear Me the First Time…

As I cleared the other side of Chattanooga, I saw the sign again!

BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CRACK IN YOUR FOUNDATION

“Yes, Lord. You are right! We have a crack in our foundation which is original sin.”

Like a foundation that has a crack, the danger is more cracks can grow and spring from that original weakness. I continued to think about the other cracks like ingratitude, self-pity and festering; and not keeping guard over my thoughts.

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

2 Cor 11:3

The Bones

The story doesn’t end there. By the time we reached Murfreesboro, I needed a fill up at the pump. I went inside the station to get a coffee. The song playing on the radio? “The Bones” by Maren Morris. The chorus goes

When there ain't a crack in the foundation
Baby, I know any storm were facing
Will blow right over while we stay put
The house don't fall when the bones are good. 

I don’t normally notice songs in gas stations. I mean, really?

The foundation company that fixes these “cracks”had “the answer” and therefore posed the problem. Their solution, they will come and seal those cracks. And then, like Maren sings, the house don’t fall. So what about the cracks on our spiritual lives?

Sealing the Cracks

Gratitude

After making his bed each day, a seminarian would lay his rosary across his pillow so that when he turned in to bed at the end of the day, he had to pick up his rosary and then he used that time to say the first decade as “thank you’s” to God, for ten unique ways God had blessed him that day.

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Phil 4:6

Intercessory Prayer

We are all called to stand in the gaps (or cracks) for those who are in pain or suffering. It’s a blessing to be able to stand up for one another, isn’t it? When I am in pain or sick and cannot pray, those who ask me if they can pray for me have no idea how consoling that is for me. We ask God on behalf of one another. And shouldn’t we?

“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.

Ez 22:30

Ask someone you know to pray for you. It helps them pray too. Like our deacon reminded us twice this week at mass, God didn’t make us in a vacuum. We are here to pray with and for each other.

Silence is the Best Sealant

Time spent in silent prayer (especially before the Blessed Sacrament) is the way the saints tell us we are filled. If we pray on the go (👋guilty) or pray half-heartedly (👋guilty again) or pray by talking at God (👋👋wrote the book on that one), then we are missing out.

Listening in silence is the most effective prayer, as a little second grader (now my adult son) and many saints have reminded me. My spiritual director followed that up by saying “God already knows your needs and desires. Spend time in prayer giving praise and thanks.” And isn’t that just? It’s what the bible tells us time and time again. (Over 70 references in scripture for this.)

So I put away my “why’s” and realize there is a lot of brokenness in humanity, and the earth isn’t heaven, it’s not going to be perfect here, but I don’t have to make it worse by going on and on about it in my head. Instead I can

• count my blessings on those rosary beads in the evening
• I offer the Lord what I don’t understand and trust that His wisdom is enough for me
• I ask trusted friends to pray for what I struggle with and I pray for them too
• I walk away from that whiney cracked apple because my frustrations are a sign of lacking trust in what He is doing.

“Understanding doesn’t beget peace, only trust begets peace.”

(source unknown)

Cracking Me Up

Lastly, two days after I got home, I had breakfast with one of my sons and gave him a gift from our trip to Atlanta that I purchased three days before the billboard. I had just told him the story about the billboards and the song. He loves music and the gift I bought him was from a series of candles and matches that have music lyrics on them.

As he went to leave, he said “Oh you said you have something for me?” I ran and got the candle. He looked at it and laughed. I said “What’s funny? Is that a song you like?” He turned it around and said “Mom, did you realize what this said?”

I had totally forgotten what the candle said. It reminded me in the last place that God knows exactly how and where we are “cracked” and where we are broken is where He, the light, comes in. If I was totally perfect, I wouldn’t look to the Lord for His mercy and wisdom. I would be tempted to look only to myself. I will remember Who fills the cracks, whether by sealant or light.