I've been feeling extra broken lately, a cracked pot for sure as my good friend would say. Good to read this in a talk from Jeffrey Holland called "The Inconvenient Messiah" when he was president at BYU, although this part was actually given by his wife, Patricia. Just before the quote below she said, "I guess what I've come here to tell you today is that God uses broken things.""It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. . . . it is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever." ["Broken Things," an excerpt from Vance Havner, The Still Water (Old Tappan, NJ: Flemming H. Revell, 1934). Quoted inGuideposts, October 1981, p. 5]
There's just something about being 7+ months pregnant, hormonal, and tired that shortens patience. Doesn't help that while getting ready for a new little one, I'm feeling like some of my olders are leaving for the big bad world like yesterday, but I haven't filled my full responsibility for them yet. So that adds additional stress. Sigh.
But Sister Holland's message was that "God uses broken things." In preparation for my lesson last Sunday, I used two stories of broken people that did some beautiful "unbreaking."
-- Elder Christoffersen's mother (story towards the end of this talk) - She was obviously very broken from surgery, to the point that she was on bedrest for almost a year. How mentally broken would she feel as well? And then another broken woman is brought to her??? And yet, she is able to still lift another life. Really, they lifted each other.
-- Susan Easton Black and her visiting teacher - In the story told at the beginning of this talk, there are again two broken people that are able to help and care for one another in a really big way. Her talk and the story start at about 3:40.
I guess what I'm learning is that when I'm broken, I need to understand the potential for purpose in that. Does it make me want to work harder? Serve more? Rely on the Savior more?
Like President Holland talked about in the talk above, "It seems no worthy accomplishment has ever come easily for me." [Makes me reevaluate the worthiness of my "accomplishments."]
"As you invest your time—and your convenience—in quiet, unassuming service, you will indeed find that 'he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up' (Matthew 4:6). It may not come quickly. It probably won’t come quickly, but there is purpose in the time it takes. Cherish your spiritual burdens because God will converse with you through them and will use you to do his work if you carry them well."
And, "If for a while the harder you try the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived."
Hopefully in the end, this broken pot will have created something beautiful.
