Beautifully Broken

We all have a story.  We all have a past.  God has molded and shaped us through trials and tribulations, yet its what we choose to do with these events that will shape who we become.  We can choose to allow these circumstances to weigh us down and keep us from impacting the lives of others for the glory of the Lord, or we can allow these circumstances to create us into beautifully broken pieces of art.

Starting my last semester in college I worked at Belk in the China department.  My mom really wanted to have a discussion with the manager that hired me, because she had always called me a bull in a China Shop and that was a huge reason in her mind that this was a less than perfect job for me.  To be honest she was actually very accurate on that description,  I was not blessed with the grace to stand on a 6 foot ladder and balance fine china while climbing down, typically I had a hard enough time balancing myself.  The result of this clumsiness were many broken tea cups, plates and saucers.  Every time I would feel the piece slip from my hand I would feel a sick uneasy feeling as I was forced to watch as it fell to the concrete floor, and as it shattered into many pieces.  Sometimes in just being shifted a handle would break and it would be a clean break where the piece could be glued back together and could still serve its purpose, but other times the piece would shatter into a hundred pieces and as I reached for the broom and dust pan I realized how beautiful the pattern was even in the midst of the broken pieces.  The cup could not be glued back together to be a cup, in fact it would never be a cup again and even if the pieces were put back in place the cup would more than likely leak, however if the pieces had been given to an artist, the cup's destiny would have changed drastically.  The broken pieces would have worth in the eyes of an artist.  Placed together in the perfect arrangement these broken pieces become beautiful works of art, but without the artist, the pieces were destined for only the trash.

Our lives are similar to these broken China cups,  we are broken, we are battered, we are dirty, and we are in need of the artist.  When we give our lives to the Lord, he asks us to give up our old way of life.  We  are broken into hundreds of pieces, some more than others. Some people's lives seem that they would only break into two peiecs, while others have faced drastic heartaches and trials and break into thousands of pieces.  But no matter what you have faced, you are still broken, you need to be healed, and you cant be healed without the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus unlike a  human putting a cup back together with glue, has the ability to completely restore the broken pieces back to their original purpose in a perfect condition, but sometimes he chooses to take those pieces and create something all together different and even more beautiful.    When he saves us the Lord creates us into beautiful works of art for his enjoyment and for others to see him in.  The artist is always evident in the artwork.

Have you allowed the Lord to piece you back together?  Have you allowed him to create something in you that is more magnification than the most expensive piece of artwork in the world?  Have you seen your value and your beauty  through the eyes of your creator.

We can be beautifully broken and beautifully restored if we only allow him to have our pieces.

Check back tomorrow as we talk about the broken pieces after salvation and how the Lord uses the broken to complete his greatest work.