Kintsugi Alabaster Jar

 

I am still sitting with the alabaster jar. Meditation can sometimes last for days or weeks, in quiet times or as I drive in to Aberdeen for a hair appointment. That was the situation this morning.

As I prayed, again, that the Lord will help me leave that broken alabaster jar at his feet, and completely let go of all expectations of myself or anyone else, I thought suddenly of the Japanese art of kintsugi. I have used a kintsugi kit to repair some broken bits and pieces round my house, and really do love the golden lines which mark the break and repair. The bits and pieces are no longer generic bits and pieces: they are my bits and pieces, which stand out because of the breaks and repairs. They are something special.

I will need to continue this prayer until I am convinced I’ve really surrendered all expectations of myself and other people, but this morning I began to pray that the Lord will help me with putting that alabaster jar back together with kintsugi. I’m not sure exactly how this is going to happen, but I want an alabaster jar which is sound enough to hold all my expectations of Jesus: that he will never leave nor forsake me, that one day there will be no more tears, death, separations (or airports – I think John left that one out in Revelation!), and basically that all his promises are true.

I pray that at the end I will have – or maybe be – an alabaster jar completely mended and whole, with golden threads of glue joining me back together. Underneath the royal robes, I don’t deserve, I will be a ‘kintsugi vessel’, living to serve His Majesty forever.

We are all cracked vessels, but with the Lord’s golden touch we will one day stand before him, uniquely whole.

Hallelujah!

Kamikaze Flight Paths

 

Another bird bangs into the window. Sort of gently; not hard enough to break a neck and so it flies into a bush to recover.

We put stickers on the windows, silhouettes of raptors. Scary predators for the blue tits and robins. Yet still they fly into, and bounce off the windows. Occasionally, they hit too hard, and we find them dead on the flower bed, on the path.

We think we see the way forward in life. Sometimes, the Lord gives us warning signs that actually, that is not a safe way to go. Occasionally he may even allow things which frighten us into changing our direction.

But we, with our free choice and often rebellious spirits, sometimes continue on the dangerous way, undeterred by the warning signs. We may just take a knock, surrender our pride and embrace humility and acquire a more teachable spirit. Sometimes it doesn’t end as well as that.

Open my eyes today, Lord, to perceive any warning signs you are giving me. Open my ears to hear your words, ‘This is the way; walk in it’, and to obey with humility, confident in you. (And keep the birds from their kamikaze flight paths into our windows!)

That Sinking Feeling

 

I was probably about 8 years old, with my family on vacation at Big Bear Lake. My sister and I were playing in an outdoor pool while our parents watched from the bleachers. Uneasy in the water, a poor swimmer, I suddenly felt myself out of my depth. But I didn’t want to attract attention to myself. I hated being in the limelight, so I sort of whispered, maybe a little more than a whisper, ‘Help!’

I continued to struggle towards the pool’s edge, sinking and then emerging and stage-whispering, ‘Help!’. My dad was on his feet after the first whisper. I remember seeing him taking the steps down to the pool two at a time, and then I managed to grab the side of the pool.

My dad heard the quiet cry for help from his daughter, and didn’t hesitate.

Neither does our heavenly Father. Peter lost sight of Jesus and was sinking when Jesus reached out a hand and guided him back into the boat. I don’t think Peter was whispering his cry for help: I don’t think Peter was as shy as I was!

The message of that story is, of course, that we sink when we take our eyes off Jesus. A great message, which spoke to me this morning in the recollection of that moment in a swimming pool many years ago, which says more about the response of the Father to the cries of his children.

Our cries for help are always heard and acted on, no matter how quietly they are uttered. They may be only in our heads, but still our Father hears them. And is on his way.

I am so grateful for a dad who modelled the love of God to me. Thank you, Jesus.

The Alabaster Jar

 

The alabaster jar. You know the story. The unnamed woman in the gospels brings a costly alabaster jar, containing valuable nard, and breaks it at Jesus’ feet, giving him a gift of incalculable worth. To some it is offensive, a waste of a precious resource; to Jesus it is beautiful.

Perhaps we each carry such an alabaster jar in our hearts, our minds, our spirits. Mine is fashioned from expectations I have on myself to never fail in the care of my dear Mom, and the expectations I can have on others I love, family and friends. These expectations are not from God and they suck the joy from me. While the precious ointment inside the jar is my love for Jesus and these others, the joy of that love is contained and bottled up by expectations, which can be flawed in me, and which can disappoint if they are not met.

Jesus showed me this in a time of art journalling this week, and it has been a profound revelation to me and one I am praying through. (Thank you, Elaine, for facilitating this amazing way of connecting with God!) So again, tonight, Lord Jesus, I ask your help to make this revelation a reality as I break this beautiful, but heavy, alabaster jar at your feet, releasing the beautiful fragrance of freedom in Jesus, releasing the aroma of the joy of knowing that in Jesus I am enough, he is with me, he is with all those I love, and all is well.

Maybe it’s only me that lugs around such an alabaster jar. I am so grateful to the Lord for this revelation, and am beginning to smell the aroma of love.  

I want to see

 

I reached up to draw back the living room curtains. The one on the right slid open easily. The one on the left caught on the supporting hook. It would not slide without being lifted up first. As I couldn’t reach, I left it closed, diminishing the early morning light in the room.

My perception of life, of events, of God, is not always – maybe even just rarely – clear. My ideas can become caught on an assumption, a vague value, a misconception which impairs my view and limits my understanding. I may think I see clearly, but if the curtain is not fully open, I don’t.

Lord, tear open any curtains which obscure, which distort, which conceal truth today. May I not fall prey to embracing half-seen ‘truths’ but instead may I sit in your presence, you, Jesus, who are the way, the truth and the life. Open my eyes, Lord: I want to see.

The Promised Land

 

A perfect winter’s day. The sun is as strong as it gets in January, beaming out of a blue sky sprinkled with a few wispy white clouds. Ice makes the road treacherous, but maybe it’s that frigidity at ground level that causes a mist to rise low and, earlier, thick. I couldn’t see through the mist, but beyond it, rising above it, stood the familiar hills to our south, Scolty, Clachnaben and others.

Sometimes, life lands us in a thick mist through which we cannot see, but we can still glimpse the promise of what lies beyond. We can focus on what we can see beyond. As I took a careful, short morning walk, though, that mist thickened, obscuring the hills beyond. Sometimes, life’s fogs curtain everything off, and it’s our faith which keeps us putting one foot in front of the other. Our faith, and the reassurance that we are not walking alone, but have our divine companion, Jesus, always with us.

Now, an hour later, the mist is thinning and I can see landscape of fields and trees leading up to those hills. It is a relief and a joy when life’s fogs thin and disappear and we can, once again, walk with confidence as we see exactly where we are going.

However thick the mist you are navigating today, may your inner eye focus on the promise of the Kingdom. The road may be rough and you may feel you are driving blind, but God guides your every step when you surrender the controls to him.

Martin Luther King day. A day when a man of God, a man of courage and colour, who led his nation towards the promised land, is honoured. I read this morning of the extraordinariness of his life, and how, the day before he was shot and killed, he said these words in a speech: ‘I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’

May we all walk through the mist, as courageous and confident as this inspirational leader was. May we walk with integrity and faith knowing God leads us to the Promised Land.

 

They don't know what they're doing

 

Thinking this morning about the astonishing grace of Jesus who, as a Roman soldier knelt beside his broken body stretched onto that cross, hammering in the iron nails, prayed, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’

I look at our world with dismay and anger but am challenged by my Saviour’s lavish love. In extreme pain I can only vaguely imagine, and with love in his heart I can only aspire to, he saw the enemy’s face up close. The soldier was following orders, doing what he had to do for his own sake. Maybe he was sweating doing it. Maybe he was recoiling with every hammer blow, or maybe he had grown blasé to the pain of others. Maybe he didn’t really care.

Jesus saw his heart, and whatever he saw, he loved him still.

Prayer is powerful. Prayer for one’s enemies, while under attack by them, is most powerful. By the time Jesus had died, one of the soldiers, at least, had recognised that ‘truly this was the Son of God’. Jesus’ prayer in extremis was answered.

‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting love.’ John 3:16

Father, help me to abide in Jesus as I pray today. Especially as I pray for those I see as enemies. Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.