Broken crayons still color: Excerpt from June “Moments Matter” newsletter
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Article by Ben Webb,
guest contributor
While traveling down the interstate, I noticed a billboard I had passed many times before but never really paid attention to. Its message was simple yet powerful:
“Broken crayons still color.”
The bold white words stood out against a baby-blue background. I smiled and continued driving. But later, as memories resurfaced, those four words brought back an experience I had nearly forgotten.
Years ago, while serving as a “Kids Path” (now Love’s PEAK) bereavement counselor, I often joked that I was paid to play. In reality, I learned some of life’s deepest lessons about love, grief, and loss while sitting beside children drawing dragons, submarines, and imaginary worlds. One particular visit has stayed with me ever since.
As a child, I loved coloring. One day, while searching through my box of crayons for the perfect color, I discovered that many of them were bent or broken.
I should have known better. I had developed a habit of leaving my coloring box in the car on hot summer days. The heat had softened the crayons and left them damaged.
Years later, I learned that same lesson again when I attempted to make finger paint by melting crayons in a Styrofoam bowl. The result was a colorful disaster splattered across my grandmother’s microwave.
A child’s simple wisdom
During one counseling session, I apologized to a young boy because the crayons available to him were in poor condition.
He picked up a broken cherry-red crayon that was missing its wrapper. Before returning to his drawing, he looked up at me and said:
“It’s okay. Broken crayons still work.”
At the time, I smiled and moved on. I did not realize how deeply those words would stay with me.
Later, I remembered the same expression on his face after the death of his father. Looking back, I believe there was a lesson hidden in his simple statement.
People are not crayons, but grief can leave us feeling broken in much the same way.
Loss often strips away part of our identity. We may ask ourselves:
- Who am I now that I have lost someone who was such a large part of my life?
- What purpose remains when the life I knew has changed forever?
- How do I move forward when my future looks different than I imagined?
These are difficult questions, and there are rarely easy answers.
Yet perhaps the question beneath them all is:
“What good is a broken crayon?”
The lesson I learned from that young boy is simple:
Great beauty can rise from great brokenness when placed in the hands of a skilled artist.
Broken crayons still color. Likewise, broken people still have value. After loss, many people feel useless, forgotten, or permanently damaged. It can seem as though grief has taken away an essential part of who they are. But brokenness does not erase purpose.
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I still remember the final strokes that little boy added to his drawing. I can picture the concentration on his face as he carefully completed his masterpiece.
When he finished, he proudly held it up for approval. It may have been the most beautiful red rose a six-year-old could imagine.
Today, I keep a broken red crayon beside my computer as a reminder.
It reminds me that beauty can emerge from brokenness. It reminds me that brokenness is not the same as hopelessness. Most importantly, it reminds me not to dismiss those who feel damaged by life’s circumstances.
Sometimes the very people who appear most broken are the ones capable of creating something extraordinary.
Brokenness is not the end of usefulness.
A broken crayon may not look the same as it once did, but it can still create beauty. In much the same way, people who have experienced loss, grief, or hardship still possess value, purpose, and the ability to make a meaningful impact.
Broken crayons still color.
And broken people can still create masterpieces.
