mosaic...

One of my friends recently wrote a blog about being a "cracked pot." Mainly it was about how he felt broken and damaged, but how his cracks and crevasses and wounds allowed living water to flow out. And this makes him attractive to other people who are broken and wounded and searching for living water, which he can easily share because water flows out of a cracked pot.

It reminded me of a women's retreat I had gone on in college. I was excited about this retreat...my church back in Baton Rouge has some of the strongest and humblest women I have ever encountered. I wanted to go so that they would share those womanly "steel magnolia" secrets...how to be the perfect combination of strength and beauty and softness and integrity. The leader of the retreat spoke about being "cracked pots," and how God either breaks us or allows us to be broken so that He can better use us to minister to others. I guess we can better spill living water or salt or light...pick your own biblical metaphor...if we have some cracks. We live in this world, and we're supposed to interact with it. It's hard for someone to fulfill their duties as the salt of the earth when they stay in a salt shaker (thanks Becky Pippen!).

At that point in my life (the time of the retreat), there had been about two times in my life where I felt like I had been completely shattered beyond repair. I think that I would add one since then...so three total now. When this shattering happens, I look around and wonder a few things: (1) how in the world did this happen? (2) why did it happen? and (3) where are all of the pieces? The shards have been scattered...I look around and can't find pieces that I thought would be integral to the structure and integrity of my clay pot. I think that God somehow causes some of those pieces that I was depending on to be completely removed or turned to dust and blown away so that I can no longer depend on them. I look around at the pieces that are left and try and make sense of them on my own, but I can only come up with less than adequate ways of trying to solve the puzzle. I like to think that God decides to keep some pieces so that He can use them in making the new pot...more like a mosaic than starting over completely from pliable clay. I don't think I make good clay. I would like to say that I remain soft and compliant to His will, able to be shaped and molded. This, however, is not reality; anyone who knows me would probably add a hearty Baptist "AMEN!" to that statement. I know that I am susceptible to being baked and hardened by situations...wandering in a desert, for instance. Or playing with fire (figuratively speaking, of course).

This entire blog was probably too allegorical and all over the place, but I have been told by many people (including a therapist) that I view the world in metaphors, and it helps me deal with my own insecurities without having to be too transparent. :) So there you go. It's also after midnight, and I'm stuck at the hospital, (where I can't ever really sleep) on psych call...which is bound to anyone slightly crazy.