I’ve held on to these stickers for years. There’s been no reason for keeping them except that when I first encountered them (in some kind of packaging or something), I joked with myself, “Oops I dropped my name tag.” It looks oddly like a name tag, and it feels like it, too: “Hi, I’m Fragile.”

I gave myself the name out of compassion for myself, not out of shame. Because it’s a lot to live in a world like this. We’ve been bombarded with sharp words that found entry through our phones into our supposed safe places, and we suspect no place is safe, no place is quiet. We’ve been overwhelmed by unexpected limitations and grievous failures and nauseating news stories that burrow into our organs and make it hard to breathe and think and stand up straight. We’ve been asked to bear the pain of friends and acquaintances and complete strangers. We’ve been tasked to give solutions for problems bigger than our wingspan, and our microwaved wisdom isn’t working like we thought it would. Everything is falling apart, including our insides. Our name tag says Fragile. Of course it does.

But we’re strangely hardened, too, perhaps terrified by how close we are to shattering, and so, in an attempt to protect our brittle souls, we’ve wrapped ourselves up in a worldly strength. We’ve sat squashed under condemnation and then in an attempt at strength, relished in heaping condemnation upon others. In an attempt at strength, we’ve denied our own grief, and we’ve rolled our eyes at the grief of others. In an attempt at strength, we’ve worn lies like armor. We’ve eaten rotten fruit, fruit whose nature we underestimated when we planted its seeds, and now that it’s grown, we cling to our deception, devouring what is putrid and deciding it’s delicious. Perhaps this lie will protect us from the pain of repentance, from bearing the distinct lowliness that comes when we say, “I have been so wrong.” 

But Fragile, you have sought the wrong refuge. Let me take your hand and lead you to a better Way. There is One who takes hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh. One who takes a heart that clings to a grave of self protection and deceit and exchanges it for a heart fully alive. 

A heart of flesh feels like a scary thing to have in a world like this, but it is gifted and inhabited by One who has overcome the world. It is shaped by One who does not ask you to be strong but invites you to be weak, because, after all, he is Strength itself and he promises to be with you, beside you, before you, behind you. There’s no need to manufacture a plastic substitute.

The way to him may go against the instincts you’ve learned in trying to be strong. The way is, “I have been so wrong”; the way is, “I am weak”; the way is, “I need you.”

Dear Fragile, of course you are trembling, and of course you are lowly. Let me show you to the one who will soften your heart and steady your hand with his, who will lift up your head and say, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He has paid for your sin by enduring its shame himself, he will wrap your weakness in his strength, he will perfectly protect your ultimate treasure, and he will faithfully take the rotten, half eaten apple from your palm each time you pick it up and invite you a better feast.