Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Broken Handle

Have you ever held pieces of a broken treasure in your hand and stared at it wondering immediately if it could be repaired? Recently I recalled a picture of a broken handle. I saw myself trying to glue the piece back in. It fit perfectly back into place, but I knew when I added the glue it would be spaced differently. I saw the lines of the cracks that would never disappear and grieved the piece was altered. It had been transformed into something familiar but changed, but never again like the original. I  glued the pot and remember turning it to conceal the cracks. But, with every glance I knew they were still hidden on the back side, camouflaged. 

I asked God about the pot I saw and he showed me it was my hollow human heart. Very bruised, broken and torn unlike the vibrant one he had created for me. I had broken it in places and it had taken a beating and abuse from myself, others and events.

Nichelle's sketch
The handle that had fallen off was a picture of old wounds that held me captive but served no purpose.  Like a heart that needed oxygen to beat it was disconnected.  God wanted the dead piece out of my heart now! As always he was waiting for me to allow him to do damage control. Could I let go? If I was to glue or mend that piece, it would be so ugly. It would be like an unwanted stronghold, an added component in my life. 

The straight edges on my heart were clean cuts that represented a break that was out of my control. Events that surprise us, can shock us and are very painful. There is nothing we can change or alter after the fact. Sometimes as quickly as it happens we quickly conceal it and think we do not have to deal with it.

Other breaks are jagged from a longer period of time, where I allowed my heart to keep the pain. The hurt ripped over and over and further down like a piece of fabric. I kept the now awful pain as if it were a needed friend, I depended on.

Other pieces in my heart were fragmented pieces. I wanted to throw out each pieces if it were an offense, once a vital part of my heartbeat but it revealed an obstruction. Now it could never serve a good purpose. This felt like situations where I had loved, and through a relationship or soul tie that was formed, it needed to be discarded. Someone had taken my piece and I theirs. It needed to be returned or tossed out.  Some of us are not good at throwing UN-useable pieces away and keeping the painful memory as junk in a closet.

Years ago, I accidentally broke someone’s special clay figurine. I was surprised as I wet the clay.  It naturally re-formed. Clay is very forgiving, and the material which is said the human body was formed from.  Sometimes we are like that figurine and we need to be broken and remolded to be seen by our creator in his light and forgiving like clay.  We can look perfect on the outside but underneath there are fault lines hidden from others but seen by God.

How is your repair going? Are you allowing the Spirit to help?
People whom you love and trust the most can often leave the most shattered, crushed pieces in your heart like foreign objects.  We attempt to make that relationship or situation like it was before it was broken but it can never be the same!  We may still want the familiar, even though the familiar is not a right fit. It served its purpose as it touched our lives, but something changed and we wonder what can ever replace that void. That’s when we need the master potter who can mold, reshape and fill us. Jesus and the Spirit have the substance to nourish our wounds, to piece us back together into something so awesome and unique! As in times past where treasures were hidden in ugly clay pots God has molded a treasure into our lives. 

I am allowing God to reshape my fault lines and the Spirit of the living God to mend my heart. There is still much to do! From this cleaned pot, I wish to pour good and joyful healing substance from my pot to yours, as God touches me!

God’s JewelsYet we who have this spiritual treasure are like common clay pots, in order to show that the supreme power belongs to God, not to us. We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed. At all times we carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.” 2 Corinthian 4:7-10 GNLT

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