Still Beautiful, Even With the Hole

Early Sunday morning, I was sitting on my front porch having my quiet time before going inside to make breakfast and get ready for church.

When I first settled into my chair, something in the yard caught my eye.

Stretching between two trees right in front of me was a large spider web. The morning sun was hitting it just right, illuminating every little strand. It almost seemed to glow. It was so beautiful that I reached for my phone and took a picture.

But there was something else that was impossible to miss. There was a big hole shot clean through the lower left side of the web. It wasn’t a tiny imperfection. A whole section was simply gone. And yet, the rest of the web was still there. Still strong. Still catching the morning light. Still doing exactly what it had been created to do.

As I sat there looking at it, something about that web began to feel strangely familiar. Personal, even. And after a couple of minutes, I realized why. It looked a little like my life.

There is so much in my life that is beautiful. So much that I am deeply grateful for. God has blessed me beyond anything I deserve, and I can see His goodness woven through my story in more ways than I could ever count. But there’s also a hole.

There’s one part of my life that ​I’ve mentioned here before​ that isn’t the way I prayed it would be. It’s painful, and from where I stand on this side of eternity, I can’t see how that particular part of the story gets made whole.

Maybe you have a place like that too. Maybe there’s something you prayed would turn out differently. A relationship that isn’t what you hoped it would be. A loss you still carry. A prayer that hasn’t been answered the way you wanted. A dream that never happened. Something in your family, your health, or your circumstances that you would change in a heartbeat if you could.

Sometimes we look at that one broken place and allow it to become the thing we see most. But sitting on my porch Sunday morning, God seemed to be reminding me of something through that little web.

The hole didn’t make the rest of it any less beautiful. The sunlight still danced across it. The strands that remained were still strong. And the web was still useful. Maybe that’s something some of us need to remember about ourselves, too.

We don’t have to wait until every broken place is repaired before God can use us. We don’t have to understand every painful chapter before our lives can reflect His goodness. And we don’t have to have a perfect story to have a purposeful one.

In fact, ​I’ve lived long enough now​ to know that God often does some of His most meaningful work through the places we would have chosen to leave out of our stories altogether.

I don’t know what He will ultimately do with that particular hole in mine, and I’m learning that I don’t have to know. I can trust that ​He sees the entire web​ when I can only see the section right in front of me.

What I can do is keep showing up. Keep loving. Keep serving. Keep being grateful for all the beautiful strands that are still very much intact. And keep trusting that even the parts I don’t understand are held by a God who does.

That spider web wasn’t perfect Sunday morning. Neither is my life. Neither is yours. But maybe perfect was never the requirement.

We can have holes in our stories and still catch the Light. Perhaps that’s when people can see Him shining through us most clearly.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

September 16, 2026 Morning Brew