Transformation

The ocean is amazing and I will forever be in awe of its power, beauty and majestic strength.  A couple of weeks ago, I spent many hours jumping, swirling and tumbling in the waves of the gulf.  As the current pulled me and tossed me around in the sand and waves, I began to realize that the unsteady feeling I was experiencing in the ocean is the very same one I have felt on many occasions since the landscape of our lives changed so dramatically earlier this year.
I marveled at this fact for a few moments.  (I am always amazed at how loud God seems to speak to me while I am the beach.)  You see, every day the landscape of the beach is transformed by the power of the waves, and it was a fantastic reminder of the fact that at any given moment the landscape of our lives can be altered forever.  A broken relationship, an illness, a stroke, a surgery, a tragedy, these are all things that can change your circumstances and appear to "ruin" your life forever.  But the majestic and all powerful creator of the universe can also change the landscape in an instant just as He spoke the world into existence, He can easily transform your whole world in the blink of an eye, or the change of the tide.

Every few hours of each day that I was there, the ocean changed.  The tides, the waves and even the sea life became dramatically different in just a matter of moments. I merely had to wait a little while before I could experience another alteration and I embraced each one as beautiful in its own way.

So this got me to pondering the idea of embracing the transformations in our lives.  A brain injury is a dramatic transformation - in case you didn't know that already.  And it can be extremely difficult to fully embrace this radical transformation as you usually have NO time to adjust to it before you are in the heat of the battle.  You find yourself in unfamiliar territory, unsure of each step you take and extremely unsteady.

Am I being a good spouse, mom, friend, coworker and disciple as I struggle to figure out how to get from point A to point B without falling?  Can I navigate this landscape change and still be useful to God and to those around me? But really this isn't just true of my life, but of everyone around me as well.  We are all wondering the same things as we struggle through the situations of life. 

Well, I am here to tell you there is good news for me and for you.  You see, in Japanese culture there is an ancient art called kintsugi that encourages the embracing of the worn or damaged pieces of pottery with the addition of gold or silver compounds mixed together to restore the brokenness into something even more beautiful than before.  I LOVE THIS CONCEPT!

I have always said I am just a cracked pot, and now I can say that God has used the art of kintsugi to take this broken, messed up, cracked pot and created an even more lovely vessel for Him to use because He has mended my broken places, He has transformed the landscape of my messy life and has restored me into His "poema" - His masterpiece.  How cool is that?  I mean talk about love and grace.

If we as humans can take a broken cup and piece it back together again and make it more valuable than the original, how much more so can God make us into something greater than we are.  But in order for Him to be able to do that, it requires us to be willing to embrace our brokenness and view the transformed landscape as something better than whatever was before instead of longing for what once was.  And that, my friends, is not always easy to do.  But here is to trying to see it this way from here on out.

You have called me to deep waters trusting that you will steady my heart as the waves reach ever higher and higher.  I will rest in you Lord, knowing that you alone can create a masterpiece from what my human eyes see as useless. You are the mastermind who created kintsugi just to show me how much you really do love me no matter how broken or damaged I think I may be.  You heal me, restore me and make me beautiful.  You are my transformation and restoration all wrapped up in one.  Help me to embrace the brokenness in my life so that you can use me for more than I ever thought possible.