Ugly.

Life is full of broken pieces. Dare I say it's made up of broken pieces? It's true.

I passed Saturday afternoon in a thrifter's haven: just under a mile of yard sales in Bryn Marr neighborhoods. Everything you could want or need or imagine wanting or needing was on a sidewalk somewhere in Bryn Marr. Name brand clothing (for a girl from Iowa, clothes from Target and Walmart are name brand, so New York & Co is like gold), cooking stuff, decorating stuff, kid stuff...just lots of "stuff".

At one table, there was this ugly vase. When I saw it, I immediately pressed a sarcastic comment to Elizabeth, my partner in bargain-hunting. I'm still hoping it's owner at the time didn't overhear.

It was really ugly; definitely one-of-a-kind. It looks like someone broke about twenty-five china plates in their anger and tried to make something out of the pieces, so they stuck them together in thick, off-white pottery. It weighs seven or eight pounds and is over a foot tall. I had no conceivable idea of what you would use this thing for.

I bought it for two dollars.

First off, thanks for nothing, Elizabeth. You were supposed to be the one who kept me from buying crap I don't need. Secondly, it's growing on me. I lugged this unnecessary thing all around Chicago; around the yard-sale-happy neighborhood, to the beach, up LaSalle, and down Clark.

When eventually I got it to my room and pulled it out of the bag I felt ironically drawn to it's ugliness. It felt familiar, somehow. The weight of it, the imperfections it had. I don't know, I actually kind of liked it. In that moment, I actually thought there was something beautiful about it's ugliness.

And it is. Beautiful, that is.

What I'm thinking is this: life is ugly. Life is made up of ugly and broken pieces. When I look at my vase, I wonder why the artist used some of the pieces he or she did. While some of them I can imagine having once been a beautiful piece of delicate china, some look more like ceramic mugs from Goodwill. Then there are some that just downright ugly. Like this one piece, about one-third from the top. It's green and blue and brown and white. It looks like the head of a sea creature, half woman half something else. No, not beautiful and enchanting like a mermaid. Just...ugly.

I wonder why that piece is there. I wonder why it was used at all. It doesn't seem to fit.

Life is made of broken pieces.

I'm challenged this morning to think through mine. There are so many of them. It's a daunting task, an embittering one. They seems to have crashed on the ground under my feet. They are scattered in pieces too little to be useful and too big to be ignored.

They are pieces of hurt and fear and joy and tears and waiting and trying and failing and empty. And there's lots of them.

So here's what I've figured. I could keep sifting through these pieces, picking out the ugly ones and the ones too little to seem useful. But I keep cutting my fingers and getting no where in the process.

Or I could let the Artist decide what's valuable. I could let Him decide what goes and what stays and what's useful. I could let Him press the pieces into His love, and make something one-of-a-kind out of it. Because brokenness without love is just pain. Love gives value to the pieces, even the ugly ones. Love takes something no one else wants or even wants to look at a moment longer, and collects them with the promise of something new. Something more whole.

I'm wondering what our Artist is up to. What is He making? Will tomorrow will be better than the pieces around my feet today? Will I ever be more whole than I am broken? I don't know...

Maybe, just maybe, I'll even be something beautiful.