A Cracked Pot

How is my cup supposed to overflow, when there isn't even a dribble inside?

Parched. Drained. Dry. Nothing left. Not even a fairy-sized sip. I've poured out every drop and there's simply nothing left. I yearn for an abundance.

But even a splash would feel like a desert oasis if I could swish it around in my cup, watch it swirl around the sides before lapping it up, savoring its sweet wetness before it slides down my burning, exhausted  throat.

My cup is cracked. It's chipped. And every dewdrop slides out  before it can refresh me. It's not overflowing, it's leaking dry.

I love teacups and teapots. There's nothing quite like Earl Grey tea in a bone china cup delicately decorated with little pink flowers and silvery - grey swirls. It's refreshment and luxury that you can hold in your hands.

Once, in my haste, I cracked my Royal Doulton Tranquility tea pot. (The irony of the pattern name has not escaped me) I set it on my kitchen counter and poured the boiling water inside.  A slow fizzing hissed from the delicate porcelain then water pooled on the counter. And there it was, a crack from stem to stern.   The precious teapot had been cold and the water had been too hot. It cracked in the heat and my heart did too. It was my first teapot, given to me when I was 13.

And the thing about that cracked pot is it's still beautiful. You can only see the crack if you look closely. But it's not functional. It no longer holds water, but it sure looks beautiful on my shelf. 

I've thought a lot about that moment recently. I feel like that teapot. I've filled myself up with too much, too fast on a mission to live abundantly after the drought of 2014. But, now I'm cracked.  I'm literally a cracked pot. And I can't hold anything that I pour into my life.

I don't want to be a beautiful pot sitting on the shelf. I want to be more than a pretty porcelain thing that once also had a function. That pot had a purpose and now that purpose is lost. Even though it's still pretty, it's purpose-less. And I don't want that to happen to me.

Sometimes, in my haste (and I know I'm not alone in this) to be purpose-filled, I fill up my days, my mind with too much. I say yes too often. And I plan too much. I keep looking for just the thing to fill me up to the brim so that all that goodness can trickle over the edge and into the saucer. 

But what if I am not the one who is to fill me? What if that is where I went wrong? Now I must sit and rest and ask the Potter to fill that crack, patch it up and repair the damage I inflicted.  And then He will slowly bring me to temperature, carefully pouring ever warmer water in to temper my bone china heart before filling it with the fiery water of passion and purpose. Then I will overflow with His abundance.

"May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!" Romans 15:13 MSG