Shelby's little hippo piggy bank broke yesterday.
As I was gluing the pieces she handed me back together I noticed that God was quickening my spirit for a lesson for myself.
This fragile ceramic art my daughter had made broke into two pieces. I knew it could be fixed with the right kind of glue and length of time for the glue to set. So I stranded the bead of glue on the fragments and thus placed the pieces together to set.
Shells said we can just tape it together. But that's only a temporary fix an knowing my little one it would not last long lol. So I told her we would glue it together for it to be strong again.
Then it hit me...like a warm flood of peace.
I'm.......we.........are like this fragile ceramic art. We are God's masterpiece that He made in His image...though much more fragile.
We get our feelings hurt, things fall apart around us....and things happen that break us down.
But when we have the faith knowing that God can and will restore us ... He puts us back together with the right kind of glue.
Now those crack lines will still be there, but it give the hippo character.
Our toughest times develop our character; it gives us a reminder of how God does heal our wounds. I am not called to be a perfect-flawless person. No one is. We are just called to be us.
The past few weeks have been the hardest I think I've ever faced. Loss, hardship, things breaking, arguments I didn't want to happen, events falling through, things happening out of my control. And at times I haven't acted to gracefully as I should and truthfully ...yes even as a youth pastor....just wanted to give up and say forget this.
However, within the breakage I know I'm being refined, I know my family, my relationships, our ministry is being refined.
During the curing process of the glue setting that once things are put back together I'll be stronger. Little ceramic hippo will be stronger at those cracked points with the glue than with out it. God is our glue without it we will never be as strong as we could be.
So though its hard...and at moments I've thought I was a complete mental person that is insane for believing good things could still happen....today I will believe that restoration is possible that God really does have my best interest in mind.
Humbly,
Mrs. Z
