Uncontained Mercy

We have an image of the Divine Mercy that sits on top of our entertainment center in the living room of our college house. It’s one of the first little things you might see when you walk in the room or sit down to watch a show. It’s in a gold-plated frame we probably picked up from a garage sale or thrift store. The frame is falling apart, all four sides just barely held together in a balance. When we bump the shelf, the frame often slips into several pieces. We’ve often thought about replacing it, or gluing it back together.

But this little golden frame has always struck me as something special in all its imperfection.

It’s there, trying to contain and bring beauty to an image already so perfect, the image of Christ, our Divine Mercy. An image and concept that is by nature, unfathomable.

This little frame tries to glorify the picture, like I try to glorify Him.

We both are falling apart, this little gold frame and I.

Yet in its brokenness I have been drawn to the beauty of the metaphor:

Nothing can contain God.

Nothing can add to His beauty, for He is perfect.

And yet, the image is somehow changed for the little frame around it.

God does not need our praise to edify Him, or to make Him greater somehow. And yet, things are changed when we glorify Him.

We are changed when we add our littleness to His majesty.

And He wants nothing more from us than to offer what we have in all our littleness and humanity and say to our King of Mercy:

“I am little, but I want to glorify you. Here I am.”

The frame is more beautiful for that which it contains, even in all of its brokenness and misfit pieces.