Crushed glass...

​          I watched a video recently on crushed glass. Thousands of these pieces of glass had been washed up on the seashore and seemed to form a glittering film on the sand. As the narrator explained, many years ago, bottles would have been discarded in the sea and these had been broken and crushed by the pounding waves over a period of time. But besides being broken and crushed, each broken piece had also been smoothed over by the same rough movements of the salty waters. They were of different colours – white, blue, green, brown – and left a colorful display, I’m sure, as they were washed up on the seashore. 
         Many feet would have crushed them, unseeing, uncaring, barely taking a moment’s notice as they made their way along the seashore. But each piece had a unique story to tell, of the hands through which it had passed before becoming a broken mess; of lands it had seen before being pounded into seeming nothingness at the hands of crashing waves.
         Sometimes, we may feel like these pieces of broken glass – once whole, once full of life, usefulness and purpose before the waves of life came crashing down on us, shattering us, seeming to strip us of every shred of worth and value. For many, being whole, being complete has become a distant, foreign memory that we can never grasp again. Yet, only our Sovereign God has that unique, beautiful ability to make something special out of nothing; He has the power and ability to breathe life and worth into something that seems worthless.
Just like the analogy of the wet wood in my post last week, God is able to ignite something that seems “unignitable.” Only God can take a life that has been battered and soaked by wave after wave after wave and washed ashore like a piece of rubbish and create treasure out of it. It doesn’t matter how hopeless your life looks, it doesn’t matter how worthless you may feel because of failures and shortcomings, God is able to do amazing things in and through you.
         Here’s the other interesting part. With those same batterings and beatings that life sends your way, God is also able to smooth you out and make you into something beautiful and special. I love to say that nothing is wasted by God and it isn’t. Even the negative He is able to use as a tool to sculpt something of worth, value and purpose. I can assure you that that is exactly what God has done and is still doing in my own life. Nothing in my life, good or bad, is being wasted by Him. He is taking everything and using it for good. 
         Recently, I felt discouraged as God helped me to understand the negative impact certain situations in my past were having on my life now. The memories of those negative situations brought feelings of worthlessness and discouragement that were difficult to simply shake off. But God had a plan. As I spent some hours battling with negative emotions, God stepped in, in His usual glorious way, and helped me to see that in spite of the negatives He had been using me to do wonderful things for Him all along. He never waited for me to become perfect or to have it all together. Even as my messy pieces lay around me as if taunting me, God helped me to see that it was those same pieces He used to reach others for Him. It was my brokenness that He used to reach other broken people ... NOT my “perfection.”
          Over the years, as I have learned to give each broken piece, each defective piece to Him, He has used each one to bring encouragement, hope and comfort to others. No, my God didn’t need me to have it all together. He just needed me to surrender each and every broken area of my life to Him and to let Him shine in and through it. Each piece He used to reflect HIS light NOT my brokenness and He’ll do the same for you. Just ask Him to take those pieces that are so hard for you to surrender, those pieces that you have been holding on to for so long, almost as a source comfort. It’s not in the holding on, hoping that it will just go away. It’s in the letting go, releasing it into the Hands that are able to transform something worthless and painful into something valuable, useful ... a true treasure.
 
         If you have not asked Christ to come into your life as Lord and Saviour, I invite you to do so now. Allow Him to take every area of your life and use it for His honour and glory. Only He can take it and create a life that shines brightly for Him! 

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