One-Sided Toast
What a half‑toasted slice taught me about grief, bravery, and God
Who thinks about toast? I do, apparently.
Maybe that’s not what most people spend their quiet moments on, but in this undefined season of my life, my thoughts have taken on a mind of their own. Everything seems to be a lesson now, and I don’t even have to look very hard. There’s a cascade of reflections surrounding unchartered waters, hesitant new beginnings, old pains, and that strange in‑between place where silence breathes and the world looks curiously different and out of place.
The other day I made toast. Gluten‑free, because that’s my life now. The toaster looked fine—elements glowing red on both sides—yet when the slice popped up, only the right side was golden and crisp. The left side was spongy and raw. Half toasted. Perfectly imperfect. Ridiculous, and somehow exactly the metaphor I needed.
We like toast whole. We like both sides equal: golden, warm, butter melting into all the little crevices. Some people like it barely kissed by heat, others like it nearly burnt, but we all expect it to be toasted on both sides. We don’t anticipate a half‑done slice staring back at us like it’s confused about its own identity; yet, there it was. The defining moment of “me.”
I checked the toaster, fiddling with the settings, searching for a reason for this oddity. The toaster seemed to be working. So why this peculiar result? I have no idea. And that’s exactly the point.
It gave me pause to think that when someone you love is gone, you feel like that half‑toasted slice—one side warmed by memory and love, the other side cold and raw because the person who completed you is no longer here. You were whole, and now you’re half. You can’t make sense of it. You can’t fix it. You can’t toast the missing side back into existence. Oh, but how the heart longs to be able to.
Grief feels like that moment when the toaster pops up that half toasted bread and you realize life will never look the same again.
Remember The Brave Little Toaster? I love that animated movie. I thought about it recently.
The little toaster went through trials, fears, and lonely moments. It pressed on even when it felt abandoned. It kept moving when everything in it wanted to shut down. I can identify. Grief calls us to be brave in that same strange way.
Bravery however is not the absence of fear. Bravery is facing fear seemingly alone yet remembering that Jesus is beside you and nothing in or out of this world can pull Him away. He is never absent. He is always near.
Bravery is not standing before a giant believing you’ll win—it’s standing there knowing that with Christ, win or lose, you always win because Jesus is with you. Like the three Hebrew boys in the fire: Jesus didn’t meet them before they were thrown in fiery blaze. He met them in it.
Grief feels like an ominous valley. Psalm 23’s valley of the shadow of death. The place where you walk through darkness, yet cling to the promise that the Shepherd walks with you.
Maybe David wrote those words while facing Goliath, maybe not. But the truth remains: he was staring at something enormous, something threatening, something that could have destroyed him—and yet he knew God was preparing a table for him even in the presence of his enemies.
God has not stopped doing that for us.
Lessons From a Little Toaster
In The Brave Little Toaster movie, a group of old appliances set out on a journey to find their master after being left in a cabin in the woods. Sometimes grief feels exactly like that—abandoned in the woods, unsure where the Master is, unsure how to move forward.
Along the journey of uncertainty, we will face obstacles, dangers, and moments of despair. Yet we persevere. Persevering is not for the weak. It is pressing on when you don’t feel like moving. In grief, perseverance looks like simply getting out of bed every morning. It’s taking a shower when you would rather sleep in. It’s forcing yourself to eat something even though your stomach is in knots and seems to be doing back flips. Sometimes it’s sitting in the quiet while your mind is still reverberating with noise. It’s the waking up exhausted yet grateful you are still waking up.
There is one scene in the movie that has always stayed with me: Lampy, the little lamp, sacrifices himself by acting as a lightning rod to recharge a dead battery. His bulb burns out, but the battery comes back to life.
Isn’t that what Jesus did? He gave His life because our light had burned out. He absorbed the strike so we could shine again.
Later in the movie, we see the brave little toaster throw himself into the crushing gears of a junkyard machine to save the other appliances. Again, isn’t this what Jesus did for you and I. He stepped into the crushing gears of death to break its power over us once and for all.
There are so many parallels, so many quiet lessons tucked into a simple animated film. And somehow, all of them circle back to my half‑toasted slice of bread.
When Half Will One Day Be Whole
My half‑and‑half toast is a reminder that life on this side of loss will always feel a little uneven. One side warm with memory, the other side cold with absence. One side golden, the other unfinished.
Herein lies the hope that I hold on to:
There will come a day when half will become whole again. A day when what feels uneven will be level and smooth. A day when the raw places will be refined and healed. A day when loss will no longer define the shape of our lives but stand as a testimony of how faithfully Christ carried us through.
God is not finished with our story. He is not done healing the parts of us that feel undone. He is not done bringing warmth to places that feel cold.
One day, the slice will be whole again. Not because life returns to what it was, but because God makes all things new.
Even toast. Even grief. Even me. Even you.
Prayer
Lord, Thank You for meeting me in the places that feel unfinished, uneven, and painfully half‑done. You see the parts of my life that are warm with memory and the parts that feel cold with loss, and You hold both with tenderness. Teach me to trust that You are still working, still healing, still bringing wholeness where I can only see halves.
Give me courage for the days that feel heavy and strength for the moments when simply rising is an act of faith. Walk with me through the valleys, steady me heart when fear whispers loudly, and remind me that Your presence is the warmth I cannot manufacture on our own; just receive.
Restore what grief has taken. Redeem what sorrow has touched. Renew what feels broken beyond repair.
And as I wait for the day when everything is made whole again, let Your peace settle over me like morning light. Let Your love be the steady flame that never goes out. Let Your hope rise in me
, quiet but sure.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.