Road Junk

BROKEN AND UNIQUE

When I was a little girl living in northern Florida, or as some would say, lower Alabama, depending on how you looked at it, my grandmother would walk along the side of the road and collect these glass objects which I believe were used as receptacles on telephone poles.  I’m not sure why they would be on the ground by the road, but they were.

She would bring them inside, wash them, and set them out to dry.  After they had dried, she would line them up on a cookie sheet and place them in the oven.  The temperature couldn’t be too hot or they would crack through and be ruined, but it had to be hot enough to cause an impact.  After the appointed time, Granny would take them out and immediately submerge them into a sink full of cold water.  At first you could hear this sizzle of relief as the heat escaped, but then they would start to crackle and pop and make all kinds of snapping noises.  When they were done, she would gently take them out of the water and place them on a towel to dry.  Once dried, they would be used to make paperweights, doorstops, candle holders, bookends, and any other decorative use she could find.

When they were popping and cracking in the water I would ask her why she was letting them break. Her response was, “We aren’t breaking them.  We’re giving them character.  Just wait.  They’ll be beautiful.”  I remember my bratty tone as I retorted, “it’s only road junk, and if it’s broken, it can’t be beautiful.”  Granny didn’t seem to hear my comment, or if she did, she chose to ignore it.

As I sat there looking at the finished products, I thought, “they really are pretty,” and I told Granny she was right. They were beautiful.  Each one was different. Each had crackled in a different and unique way.  Some had lots of fine lines that spider-webbed all over.  Others had bold lines with fine lines in between.  And some just had bold lines.  No two crackle patterns were the same.  Surprisingly, none of them cracked through or seemed to be weakened in any way at all.  They each had a different character and a very unique beauty.

My life sometimes seems to parallel the path of these telephone receptacles.  It seems more often than I’d care to admit, I’ve felt the heat of life’s oven. Sometimes it was more than I thought I could bear and I was certain I would just break.  I was a child of divorce growing up in a broken home.  I was a teenaged mom, pregnant my senior year and forced to give up all of my dreams of college and career as I was dragged around the country on a journey I didn’t chose to be on.  I was hurt, and angry.  I was victimized and I began to settle.  I gave up.  If I couldn’t get it right, I may as well just be wrong.

Every circumstance I went through applied a different type of “heat” and every time I allowed Him to be, God was there to provide that cooling relief I needed.  Each time He did this, a new crackle was formed in the fiber of my being.  I gained new insight, new compassion, new understanding, and new knowledge.  Each crackle, though it hurt, made me a better, more beautiful person, useful in so many different ways and completely unique.  Though many had similar experiences, I was the only one who had my experiences.

I’m sure I’m not done crackling.  I’m certain there are many other areas where God is allowing heat to be applied to make a more beautiful and unique me.  I am in one of those phases now.  It is not comfortable, but I trust the One who I know will soon apply His cooling relief and look and me and say, “You really are beautiful”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

New International Version (NIV)
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.