It all started with a short overview unit on mosaics that I taught to one of my classes, but Holy Spirit had already planned an ambush. That night I logged into Pinterest to do some scrolling and idea-hunting, and I was arrested by these natural stone mosaics in a way I have never felt with art before (which is saying a lot, considering that I’m an art teacher).
The rocks were calling me.
Long story short, I now have rocks on the brain. (Rocks for brains?) I have been enthusiastically assembling all the goods — gathering up all the rocks the boys bring home in their pockets, prowling craft stores for suitable odds and ends, pestering the flooring guy at Home Depot for everything he knows about mortar and tile adhesives, taking left over home reno slate off strangers’ hands (don’t lure me right now with chocolate and books, oh no, it’s all about the unique rocks), and accepting chipped ceramics and glass with interesting textures for use in future mosaics I can see whenever I close my eyes. Even my 10-year-old son told me when I drifted off at bedtime, “Mom, you’re thinking about rocks again.” Caught red handed.
I even purchased a little cracked terracotta pot to use:
It was the last one on the shelf, no doubt rejected and overlooked due to the giant crack in it’s side. The last person to pick through the shelf had even helpfully turned it so the crack was facing forward, almost as a challenge: Who would want a broken pot, after all? Of course, when I saw it, all I could see was how beautiful it’s cracked open pieces would look next to some teal sea glass I had found earlier, and so in the cart it went. I didn’t even bat an eye at paying full price for it — a whopping $1.48 — because what was that expense to me when when there were still more to be had for this wild hare project.
As I was sitting at my desk this morning surveying my projects in progress, this little pot preached.
I realized it was me. Broken, battered me who God scooped up out of inhospitable circumstances, breaking me open bit by bit and tranferring me into the beautiful New Thing, one chunk at a time. Perhaps it is you, too. Perhaps it is all of us, with all our chips, cracks, and dents that are being lovingly gathered up by the One who will pay — has already paid — full price for us because He can see the beautiful picture our pieces will make. Perhaps, when all we can see is the scar, He wants to show us the way we can expand.
The broken pieces, the scars, the cracks, the wounds… perhaps they aren’t liabilities like we’ve been taught. Society would love for us to all be like perfect little pots on the store shelf with nary a crack or chip to be seen, and for sure, the enemy is hoping we will succumb to our brokenness in the worst ways. But if we trust the One who picks us up, those broken pieces are the very things that He uses to invite us increase, to be bigger than we can be, otherwise. To touch more lives with the wisdom and testimonies we’ve earned, much like how all the pieces in a mosaic touch other pieces.
Do you trust Him with your chips and cracks? Do you trust Him to make them into something beautiful?
I know I want to see how the finished project looks, even if it’s uncomfortable to be seen. I wouldn’t have taken that little terracotta pot if it had been fully intact, after all. In this new art style I’m trying, I have no use for perfect. I needed that crack in the side. I wanted imperfect.
I suspect He does, too.
Yes, indeed, the rocks are speaking.