Broken and Beautiful

 

"Moses said to the LORD, 'Pardon your servant, Lord.

I have never been eloquent, neither in the past 

nor since you have spoken to your servant.

I am slow of speech and tongue.'

And the LORD said to him,

'Who gave human beings their mouths?

Who makes them deaf or mute?  Is it not I, the LORD?

Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.'"

Exodus 4:10-12

We're at it again with the scraping and painting.  This time it's a fresh look for the front of the building that is the main structure on the property next door.  This is a new stage in the reclaiming project we've undertaken; a vision that is taking its time to unfold, but has many layers of depth for us.

Not unlike the layers of paint that needs to be scraped down before new paint can be applied.

When we first got here and I started the scraping on the other building, the only tool I could find was this rusted out one with a broken off notch on the one side.  I knew we had newer ones, but there are no end of places they could be; at the other property, in the boat house, in the back shed.  When the mood strikes and the day is good for it, you don't have time for all that searching about.  I grabbed this scraper and went to town.  

We did find the other better, more intact, scrapers, one of them brand new in fact.  But by then I had actually discovered that this broken one had a special feature.  The rusted out piece provided a hook that most definitely helped loosen chunks of old paint from the corners.  This particular scraper, with its imperfections, became my preferred instrument to get the job done.

Then there's Moses.  But back to him in a second.

Like most humans, I suspect, I can get quite frustrated with the bits about me that I consider defective.  I won't list them here, since they're quite obvious to those who know me anyways.  Or, by chance you might not agree and feel the need to correct and encourage me.  Or you might and feel relief that I've finally figured it out and comment that you've been 'praying for a long time that I would come to my senses' (which is actually what someone once said to me in a vulnerable moment, but anyways).  Or you might instead begin with a list of your own deficiencies for yourself and start feeling all down about yourself which is the exactly the opposite of the intention of this post.  And all of that would just distract us.

The thing is, there's enough in the Bible to suggest that a) God's quite intentional, b) He knows what He's doing, and c) we all have good work to do.  And if I put that together with what He said to Moses that day when Moses complained about his own defectiveness, then, I can't help but wonder if most of the time what we perceive as being deficient isn't actually something God considers a bonus.

I admit, the part about Him 'confessing' that He had something to do with folks who are deaf and mute has some troubling ethics.  This of course wouldn't just then be about disabilities related to communication only, which was the topic at hand in the conversation, but about anything we humans tend to regard as less than ideal.  But isn't it curious that our current attempts to speak in ways that do no label folks would have us now refer to such individuals as 'differently abled.'  Which may or may not have been God's point.

What if we could actually embrace ourselves and celebrate all the ways we aren't perfect, and the ways we don't live up to our culture's ideals of beauty or ability or achievement.  What if there were things about us that were both quirky and helpful to the good work God's given us to do?

It's hard to see it sometimes, I know.  And to be honest, I didn't really start to believe this about myself until recently, as in until I was well into my 50s.  So maybe it's something you can own only after you've seen the repeated evidence of God's ability to use you in spite of/because of yourself over a life time.  I don't know.  I wish I could have caught on to this sooner. 

And by the way.  Yay and hooray for my enthusiastic and wonderfully inspiring brothers and sisters in this wide and diverse faith we call Christianity that preach and experience unusual and dramatic signs and wonders, particularly in the realm of physical healing.  Thank you for your life and ministry and for bringing attention to the power of the risen Lord by means of the miraculous.  

And also, there are miracles of a deep and profound nature when people 'afflicted' refuse to be defined or restrained, and move powerfully in their world to affect change and bring about the kingdom of God 'on earth as it is in heaven.'   In my own life and ministry, I seem to have been witness to more of the latter kind of miracle.  And it is a powerful privilege indeed.

While I was meditating on these things, I came across this clip from The Chosen, where Jesus is explaining to James why James won't be healed.  It's quite moving.  Beautifully done.  Maybe it's something to encourage your own heart.

Okay, back to some scraping before this day gets too hot.  Let's see, where is that most useful scraper?