The Broken Vase

Addiction can often be picked out in a crowd. The consequences are either visible (abuse, reckless behavior, traffic accidents) or subtle (incomprehensible immaturity, being alone in a crowd, conflict avoider). If you are one and you’ve been around some, they can be easily spotted.

Recovery however is not as easily seen. AA is, after all, anonymous. Yes, you may witness a change in someone’s character or countenance, but if you don’t know the motivation you could just as easily chalk it up to “finding Jesus”.

Some people think that recovery gets us ahead in the game. But the tragic truth, evidenced by the examples above, is that it only levels the playing field. Recovery removes the ball and chain so that we might, might, be able to keep up with non-addicts in a race. And that is because we are broken.

Think of a vase knocked off a table. It breaks. But it is valuable, so you fix it. You buy the best super glue you can find and you meticulously return every piece to its proper place. From a distance, the vase looks like it always did, but if you look up close you can tell something is different. It still holds water, but it will never be the same. A perfect vase might fall off a short table onto a soft carpet and survive. Not you. The fissures in your structure, though adhesed with glue, will not allow such a beating. You are now forever fragile. After all, you are broken.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I once received this parable in an email:

Yes, we are broken. But that brokenness can be put to use by our Father in Heaven. We are fragile, but that makes us sensitive to the needs of others. We are fixed, and for that we are grateful to God for His grace.

A man who lived near the sea would travel every day to the shore to draw from its waters. He would carry two jars, slung over his shoulders on a long branch. Every day he would go to the shore and carry these jars back to his home. But one jar had a hole. That never stopped this man from doing the same thing, year after year. Finally a stranger stopped him and asked why doesn’t he get a new jar? Surely he can tell that he’s losing water on his way back to his home? The man replied that he knows about the hole and is grateful for it. He showed the stranger the path he always takes, every day, to get water and return home. Look, he said, along this path is a long trail of flowers. They would not be there if not for that I water them every day. And the journey down to the shore would be unbearable if I did not have their scents and their beauty to encourage me along the way. Without this jar, without this hole, this journey would not be worthwhile.

This post is part of Bridget Chumbly’s Blog Carnival. This week’s topic: Brokenness.