The Most Beautiful Things Were Once Broken — Issue 10

In his 17th-century poem The Windows, Anglican priest and poet George Herbert reflects on the way God chooses to work through human beings—fragile, imperfect, and often “brittle, crazy glass.” Herbert compares the preacher, and by extension all of us, to a piece of broken glass that becomes something radiant only when God’s light shines through it.

Herbert uses the imagery of stained glass, shards once shattered, gathered, shaped, and annealed through fire. The annealing process fuses the colours into the glass permanently, preventing it from breaking again under pressure. In the same way, Christ does not simply repair our wounds—He transforms them. What was once broken becomes not only whole, but beautiful.

When God’s story is “annealed” into us, we no longer just speak faith, we shine it. Herbert reminds us, that words alone “vanish like a flaring thing,” but a life shaped by grace becomes a living window through which others can glimpse the light of God.

Every stained-glass window tells a story, not because its pieces were perfect, but because they were gathered, mended, and made new.

No matter the cracks or fractures we carry, it is never too late to turn again to the Creator, the One who heals, restores, and makes art out of the fragments. In Christ, nothing broken is wasted. The most beautiful things, after all, were once broken.