Broken, but beautiful.

“Wait a minute…” Darlene, the inspiration and heart of the place, paused and looked at me. “You write, don’t you?”

I nodded, too overcome with emotion to do much more than mutter that, yes, I did indeed write.

She pointed to the large, cracked pottery vase she cradled in her arms and then motioned to the many more on the shelf behind her. “There’s a story here somewhere, don’t you think?”

Oh yes.

If she only knew…

Just minutes before, we’d come upstairs to discuss the details of my new volunteer duties at Coventry, a place for mentally handicapped young adults to come and learn a skill. I’d already taken the downstairs tour and had seen both the gift shop where the finished products were sold to the community and the work and production area where these special needs young adults were gaining pride and ownership as they learned the craft of pottery.

The work that is produced here is phenomenal, to say the least. To realize the special hands and hearts behind it all makes it priceless. By the end of the downstairs tour, and meeting each of the day residents and the other staff and volunteers, I already felt a sense of something much bigger than any one of us. You could feel God in the place.

I spotted an absolutely gorgeous vase that had obviously been glazed and fired but now stood alone on a shelf. I commented on the beauty of the piece. She reached for it and placed it between us. Pointing to the tiniest hairline crack in the side seam of the vase, she smiled and spoke the words.

“See? We can’t put this one in the gift shop. It’s broken, but beautiful.”

Something inside of me pulled up short and I caught my breath.

“I simply can’t throw these out.” Darlene went on. “I bring the cracked ones up here and find other uses for them. They’re still beautiful, don’t you think? They may not be able to hold water, but they’ll be perfect for another purpose.”

Broken, but beautiful. The message wasn’t lost on me. Like those pottery vases and pots, we all stand before God with cracks. Some more severe than others. Some may even be damaged to the point where “they can’t hold water.”

But that only means that holding water is not their purpose in life.

They’ll be perfect for another purpose.

“Wait a minute…you’re a writer, aren’t you?”

I am a writer.

“There’s a story here somewhere, don’t you think?”

There is definitely a story.

My God is in the process of telling it to us all.