A Hole in the Wall, Not Between Them
- Gary PWK
- Jan 20
- 2 min read
A story my brother shared with me about a month ago has stayed with me longer than I expected.
We were having lunch with the family. Nothing formal. Just conversation passing as it usually does. He mentioned how he had recently gotten a new drill from a friend, one with a hammer function he hadn’t used before. He wanted to put something up at home. Instead, he misjudged it and punched a hole straight through the wall.
He laughed as he told it.
What stayed with me wasn’t the mistake, but what happened next. His wife didn’t get angry. She didn’t raise her voice or assign blame. She laughed with him, then helped patch the wall. Even as he shared the story, she was still laughing.
The problem was clear. The damage was real. But it never became a problem between them.
That detail has been sitting with me quietly ever since.
It reminded me how often difficulties are treated as personal failures rather than shared situations. How easily tension turns inward. How quickly people stand opposite each other instead of beside one another.
In this story, the wall was the problem. Not the person holding the drill. And certainly not the relationship.
What struck me was the absence of drama. No lesson was stated. No point was made. Just two people recognising that what had gone wrong was external, and responding together.
There was grace in that. And forgiveness, even though no apology was demanded. There was a kind of unity that didn’t need to announce itself.
I’ve thought about that moment many times over the past month. Not because it was extraordinary, but because it was ordinary in the best way. It showed how love can appear in small, unplanned situations, not as an emotion, but as orientation.
Problems will always come. Things will break. Mistakes will happen.
What stays with me is how love, when it is present, does not look for someone to blame. It looks for where to stand.
Sometimes that looks like laughter.
Sometimes it looks like helping to fix what broke.
Sometimes it simply looks like staying on the same side.
Made In His Image
You are made perfectly. Loved deeply. Never beyond hope.
Visit the Made In His Image project at: madeinhisimage.life
So nice, yes it’s says a lot about their relationship being strong. I remember reading about this couple and he always told her the same story over and over and over through the years, but the wife didn’t intervene, even though she knew the answer. That always stayed with me. By the way, tell your brother that hammer drill is only for masonry drilling with a masonry drill bit.😅