I broke the bracelet my husband gave me for Christmas. It survived about 35 days before the slender gold chain got hung on the corner of a filing cabinet and snapped. Once I realized what had happened, I crumpled onto the floor and cried. I told myself, “This is why we can’t have nice things, Abby.” I tried to see if I could fix it, but the links are too small for me to open, hook together, and bend back. It was just too broken.

I slipped the ruined bracelet with the initials of our four kids into my purse. Even though I felt defeated, I couldn’t just toss it. So a few days later, when I spied the thin line of jewelry in the zipper pocket of my bag, I thought about a song that’s been playing on the radio a lot lately. It’s called “Never,” and it’s by Tasha Layton. The chorus goes like this:

Never forgotten

Never forsaken

Never abandoned

Not for a second

I am safe in Your hands

Always and forever

You’re never not working

My heart is the proof

There’s not a broken too broken for You

Will there ever come a day when You’re not holding me together?

You say “never”

I thought about that line—There’s not a broken too broken for You—and what that means for those of us who follow Christ. Colossians 1 says it better than I ever could:

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

When I break something other than jewelry—whether it’s a promise to a friend or a rule I’ve ignored or a perfect moment I’ve ruined with selfishness—whenever I’ve been on the destructive end of throwing mud on God’s goodness, I’m at a loss. It’s like I’m tasked with repairing the Colosseum, armed only with a half-roll of duct tape. I fool myself into thinking I can fix whatever I’ve broken, but I’ve come to see that I can’t do it alone.

Once I shed that undeserved job title of Solitary Queen of the Universe, I can relax in the arms of a Creator who can repair creation where we’ve broken it. Even when we’re unreliable, He’s constant. We can trust Him, because there’s never been a time—past, present, or future—that He hasn’t already visited. And He’s holding all things together. Or as a different song likes to say, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”