The beauty of the broken pot . . .

I must admit lately it has been harder to get into that secret quiet place to pray and talk with God . . . close. Do you know what I mean? I'm not talking just about intercessory prayer, but really talking with God about the deep hidden things in my heart. Hurry is the enemy of the soul ~~ oh yes it is!!


Yesterday I went to the mailbox and had a new magazine; those are just the best mail days ~~ something a little extra special you aren't expecting. I love that kind of mail. It makes me want to subscribe to more magazines (ok not really, but. . .) so anyway, as I sat on my chair outside, in the 65 degree weather (yes that's right. . . ahhhh) I started looking around ~~ paying attention to my surroundings ~~ my neighbor's flag ~~ I could hear my neighbor's son who is about 21 months old jibbering to his mama through the open window of their house ~~ I saw the high school in the distance where my son was currently at, and then my thoughts turned to you, my blog community friends. And in that moment, I thought, "I wish I could take a picture of my soul right now." Now let me just say, THAT IS NOT NORMALLY THE CASE!!!!! (pant, pant) Because generally I would want you anywhere but in there poking around, but I can truly say that yesterday my soul was enjoying the surroundings in that deep, quiet place. It was as if God was showing me things, for a moment, in a new light. Yes I'd seen it all before, of course, but somehow it looked different.



You see Ike, (EEK) hit our little MO town on Saturday and it was not pretty. Although, for us, we really didn't get any damage just a lot of wind and rain.

Dak walked out the front door on Sunday to get ready to go to the car for church and he said "mom, you'd better come here. . ." Okay now that CAN'T be good. And sure enough I went out the front door and saw a mess!!


Now as you all know ~~ I love my plants!!!!! Well, Ike had done a number on them. My big 'ole Swedish Ivy was toppled over onto my dancing frog (yes you heard that right:0) And my beautiful tropical tree thing (yeah I don't know) had fallen off of it's stand and broke, and on the way down had knocked over one of my sweet little garden buddies ~~ oh it was not pretty. Well, I did what any plant lovin' mama does, picked 'em up and loved on 'em, and talked to 'em telling them it would be alright :-)

So yesterday I sat amongst this: My broken pot. And got to thinking, how reminiscent of my own life at times . . . broken . . . crooked . . . amongst other beauties, but me . . . broken . . .

I thought about the many times the dirt in my pot had been tossed to the side by the wind. . . dirt in the pot is very significant to the plant, although you may not even give it a lot of thought most days . . . but so important to the life of the plant . . . what about the dirt in my pot?
Oh and then there's this . . . the plant pulling away from the broken pot, exposing it's roots, coming out of it's comfortable, safe surroundings . . . oh yes to take a picture of our souls in those moments . . .
This broken pot has been significant in my life. I have thought much about it sitting out there . . . me needing to repair the plant and yes, put it in another pot. Sometimes we grow beyond the comfortable surroundings we are in, or we are forced out and must leave the comfortable pot we are in . . . sometimes God just won't let us stay in that thing, so He breaks it. Most of the time it's because I just won't leave on my own.

Do you know what I found when I looked at the plant inside this broken pot? It was root bound. It so needed a new surrounding anyway. It needed to move on from that place. How long do we sit in the broken pots of our lives? The places we need to move on from? It can take the form of many things.

For us a few years ago it was a church we loved. God was moving us on, but we didn't want to go, so we stayed, root bound, needing oxygen to our roots and not even realizing it. We loved the people we did life with, but God had said "it's time to move on" I resisted and hard at first, and then the wind came and the pot broke and we knew ~~ we had to move on.

Since that time, God has blessed us so abundantly in the church we are in today. We love Him for revealing Himself to us in ways that we couldn't have seen had we stayed in a root bound pot.

It was in the brokenness we saw The Faithful. . . in the brokenness we found The Peace . . . in the brokenness we learned to trust . . . We had to get out of the broken pot and move on ~~

What broken pot are you sitting in today? What has God called you onward in Christ Jesus to do? Are you currently in a root bound pot and you know that you need to move on, but you feel stuck . . . it can happen dear one, but it's okay. God loves you so much, start moving and breaking those roots free so you can move on . . . you don't have to wait for the pot to break before you move those roots to the fresh soil of what God has for you. I encourage you to move before the breaking of the pot . . . it's just easier that way.

We so often view change as bad. It is difficult yes, but not always bad. It has it's own beauty most of the time, but usually it takes a while to see. When I get this beauty plant re-potted it will take it awhile to get adjusted . . . it may even start wilting a bit, but then it will take off once again. Loving the new soil that is nourishing it's beautiful green stems. . . loving the new pot that it can stretch it's gorgeous roots in . . . and yes, it will in time get root bound as it grows and will have to be re-potted again, but it will be so much more rooted by that point and ready for the next stage.

So much like me . . . Change is difficult and most of the time I RESIST!!!!!!!!! But God ALWAYS lovingly reminds me of the necessity of it and that being root bound just keeps you stuck. I love it that He loves me so much He won't allow me to stay stuck.

So today I encourage you to take a look inside . . . do a check . . . is there something in your heart . . . a root bound section that needs to be re-potted. Allow Him in His wisdom and love for you to unstick the stuck roots and let the oxygen start flowing once again. . . You CAN trust Him!!

Thank you for remembering us in your prayers. Moms surgery is tomorrow. Unless something changes, we have to be at the hospital at 6:00 AM. I will keep you updated as best I can.

Love to you dear ones, Dawn