There’s been a chandelier in my attic for three years that I haven’t been able to ignore. It originally hung in the upstairs bedroom of the nearly seventy year old duplex where I live – but I’ve pictured it downstairs (in my “half”) since I first saw it.

I’ve imagined it in the entry hall, but it would have hung too low and caught the front door each time I opened it. I thought the bathroom might be fun (who has a chandelier in their bathroom?) but it would have overpowered the tiny room. Then I thought my study would be a good home, except there’s already a ceiling fan there – and it’s nice to have in summer when the midday sun warms up the windows, and the room.

Last week my landlord came by to repair some tiny cracks in the dining room ceiling, so I asked him about replacing the light in that room with the old chandelier that was gathering dust. He agreed and brought it down.

The chandelier has five delicate, etched glass globes, and all of them were intact. From the base of each globe hang five glass “bobs,” each about four inches long. Every one is the same: a round “eye” connected to a triangular “stem” and tapering to a six-sided point that looks like an arrowhead. One edge of the stem is cut like a key in a curved and jagged pattern.

It was only after I looked at it for a while that I realized the center of the fixture was missing pieces. A piece of glass that looked like an inverted buttercup should have had one of the same five “bobs” hanging on each petal.

I asked him to hang it anyway – at least there was symmetry in what was missing. I figured the missing pieces would be impossible to restore, and decided the chandelier’s charm was only slightly diminished by their absence.

Later that afternoon, I stopped by a place near downtown that houses “architectural antiques” – old doors, windows, doorknobs, scrollwork and fixtures – plus a lot of what could only be called “junk.” On one counter I found a tray of cut glass tear drops that looked like they belonged to light fixtures.

“Do you have any more of these?” I asked the fellow minding the store. “Yep,” he said, and led me to a bin that was full of chandelier cast-offs. “Fish around,” he suggested.

So I did. And one by one, out of the hundreds of pieces of glass in the bin, I pulled five pieces that would fit my chandelier. They were exactly like the ones already on it, right down to the jagged edge of the stem, and now they’re hanging on it – making the fixture complete again.

“So what?” you may be thinking. So this: We might think we’re complete enough, whole enough, just the way we are. But God has resources we know nothing about, and He is able to restore our missing pieces. Not with “make do” stuff – with the stuff that was meant to be ours all along.

“O God, restore us, and cause Thy face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.” (Psalm 80:3, NASB)

© Leigh McLeroy 2004
To subscribe or unsubscribe to Wednesday words, e-mail Leigh with your request.