I've taken up a long anticipated hobby: mosaics. Mosaic is the art form of gluing tiles or pieces of broken dishes to anything you can imagine and then filling it with grout and making a beautiful piece of art out of what was originally a pile of broken items.

In my search for plates that had some character, I found that I had very little already broken around my home and tiles were expensive to buy while I was learning the process. So I decided it would be less expensive to just buy dishes at the local outlet stores and break them myself. Scanning the sale aisle for items discounted because of a chip or crack, I found many treasures that proved to be perfect for my first projects.

Romans 9:21 says, "Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" Our lives are so much like these beautiful dishes. God formed us from the beginning and has anticipated this lifetime that we would spend on earth. He knew in advance that you would be sitting right where you are today, reading this very newsletter. Before our illness, like a commonly used platter, we served- some of us served our Lord, some of us were serving the world. But either way, one day came a "Smash!"

Our illness splintered our beautiful lives into many pieces. A few pieces, perhaps spouses, children, or jobs, were lost in the process. Looking around at the pieces of broken pottery, it seemed that our usefulness was gone; it disintegrated in front of our very eyes. We believed we would never be able to serve anyone or any purpose again. Some of us are experiencing this feeling right now. What can God do with this broken body? What is His purpose for my life now!? I could serve Him so much better without this distraction of pain! Even those of us who are past this grief stage still find ourselves edging up to these thoughts, wondering… waiting… When will God really show us our new purpose? Why is His timing always so-o-o much longer than our own?

And then one day it happens. Something happens. You decide to go to that Bible study and you meet a new friend who also has a chronic illness and you go get coffee later that week and you feel renewed. You sit crying when the mail arrives, and it includes a refund check you didn't expect and a flyer for a disability ministry conference and you feel God's nudge to go.

Whatever it is that you feel, you know most of all you feel God. God's got the grout ready and He is carefully picking up the smashes pieces and making a mosaic. He is making something noble.

It's so easy to think God "dropped us" and now he's trying to make something miraculous out of His mess-something opulent out of His "oops." But consider this: God is always in control. Perhaps, with tears in His eyes, He held the hammer that broke apart your world-knowing that in the end He would piece it back together. He wanted to make you Christ-like and get you off that discounted-shelf kind of life that you were living. Somehow, it makes sense.

Lisa

Lisa Copen is the founder of Rest Ministries and lives with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. Reprinted from And He Will Give You Rest, Volume 5, Issue 9