I won a pig. I still can’t believe I won it.

I was around 22 years old at the time. We were celebrating that we surpassed our sales goals at my company. As my entire division gathered for the celebration, the Vice President had a game for us. I got excited because I like games, until he told us what the game was. He had a small target and if anyone could throw a football through this small hole, they would win a prize. My division was made up of my HR department, Security and all of Administration, including the mail room. The mail room mostly employed college guys and I thought I would never have a chance of winning the prize with them playing. David had tried to show me how to throw a football many times in the past, but I pathetically lacked the talent.

Each person came up to the front of the room and took their throw and missed. These college guys walked up with such a swagger and threw with all their might but no one hit the target.  They groaned, complained and asked for another chance to throw the football. Then it was my turn. I shook my head at the thought of how bad this was going to be. I just hoped that I wouldn’t look foolish. With a deep breath I put my hand on the laces of the football like David showed me and just threw it.

Whish! A perfect spiral as the thrown football left my hands and sliced through the hole.  I did it!

I wish I could say I was a gracious winner, but I was anything but. I screamed, I clapped my hands, I did leg kicks and jumps like I was a High School cheerleader at the Homecoming game. I ran around giving ‘high-fives’ to all my HR co-workers and I even called my Dad later on to tell him the news. “There’s another football player in the family, Dad!”

I was a terrible winner!

My prize? A ceramic pink piggy bank filled with over 100 one-dollar coins. It was a heavy piggy!

David and I were going to save the coins for a special occasion, but life has a way of changing that. I think it was spent to go towards a car repair. Yet, we still had the pig to remember my big win by.

Until about a decade later….

One afternoon, I was walking away from the foyer and I saw something pink fall from the second story. It just missed me and with a loud crash my pig broke into smithereens unto the foyer floor. Startled, I looked up to see Sarah, about six years old at the time, at the top of the stairs laughing and hand flapping with glee.

“Sarah, no!” I said with exasperation and weariness. My heart sank as yet another thing was destroyed.

Sadly, my pig didn’t fly.

Have you ever felt like your life is like my ceramic pig? Things are going well until you find yourself not able to fly, crashing into the ground and completely broken? It is amazing how quickly an ordinary day can turn into one that seems surreal.

I recently was reading about Kintsukuroi art.  It is Japanese art form of using gold to fill in the cracks in pottery. Pottery that was broken, useless and ruined is now repaired and made whole again.  In fact, the more cracks the pottery has the more valuable and beautiful the pottery becomes as the gold glues the pieces together.

Such a picture of Christ! There are times I have felt broken and defeated with this life with Autism. Yet, He brushes me off and picks up the pieces of my brokenness. He makes something new as He fills in the cracks with His peace and healing touch.  I once felt useless and ruined. Now, my filled-in cracks are a testament of Him working, healing and making me whole.

He can take the hardest times and challenges of our lives and make them into something that is beautiful. No, we are not the same as before, but He can redeem our brokenness into something that is uniquely us. It is our story, our journey, our testimony of His goodness and it is something beautiful and valuable in His eyes.

I Peter 5:1, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” ❤