Goodbye, Dear Spatula…

My spatula broke. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t seem like such bad news. It was really old. I bought it in some distant long-ago garage sale or kitchen aisle. I was young then, just starting out in marriage, parenting and life. A handy metal spatula, scraping up enumerable eggs off of sticky skillets, or flattened chip cookie failures. Many, many family dinners, wolfed down by hungry children. One day I realized that ten years had gone by and my spatula was still working. I had a metal spoon, same thing, and an old metal colander. ‘They don’t make things like they used to!’ And then it was twenty years old and then more than twenty-five. This spatula has been with me through everything.

And now, tonight, it finally broke. On the same day that my youngest went off for her last weekend before she moves out. I’m sitting here crying about a spatula. Those years past are precious.

The Lord is telling me there are two ways of looking at this. One is that the spatula is old and broken, beyond its usefulness. The other way is this: This spatula broke, not as a way of saying that everything good is over, but because its job was completed. I’ve served my family through a bunch of scrapes, and bent and got cracked. But I held on till they were strong enough to become adults. I should feel this as a huge accomplishment. It’s been such a privilege! I’m not crying now, but feeling peace.