Cracked Pots

When I think of potting plants, I immediately think of using terra cotta pots. With all the plastic containers, glazed pottery, and baskets available for plants, I'm still drawn to the brownish-orangy, yellow clay pots.

I especially love aged clay pots -- the ones in which moss has begun to grow over the surface. Such character this lends to the container as well as color and soft texture.

New or old, these are my favorite. The only problem is they have a tendency to break easily. Many a spring I have sorted through containers to find broken clay pots nestled among the new and not so new. I also find them around the house, cracked but with the soil and sometimes even the plant, captured inside.

I recently found a couple of uses for the broken pieces of these earthen vessels:

• use small pieces in the bottom of a larger container to provide drainage 
• place the container on the ground - broken side down - and place a plant in the ground giving the illusion of a plant growing out of the container
• Take larger pieces of the pot and place strategically in the flower bed to add interest

It's so difficult for a gardener to throw anything away!

I would like to think I have aged with grace and have a soft layer of beautiful moss that adds character, but I feel more like a cracked pot. In the pile of old and new, useful and aged pots, I show up as broken pieces of an earthen vessel. But I have found that I'm under the care of a loving Gardener and He too finds it difficult to throw anything away!


Under His care, He takes my brokenness and makes it useful for His Kingdom and His Glory. I may not be the most magnificent pot in the pile, but God still loves me and has a purpose for me. AND . . . He has one for you too.
 

 "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." 

(Psa. 147:3 NKJV).

God's Potting Bench

"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord." (Psa. 139:1-4 NIV).

It's humbling to know that before I wrote the first word on this blog, God knew it completely. He not only knew the word before it came off my tongue (or my thoughts onto a keypad), He is familiar with all my ways -- my going out and my lying down, when I sit and when I rise. He has already searched me and knows me.

Why can't I remember these words written by the Psalmist when I am discouraged, downtrodden, or distressed?

Why can't I remember the many truths found in Scripture?

Why can't I take hold of the promises that are written for me?

Why . . . because I don't take the time to read, re-read, and meditate on them. God's Word is full of truths and promises that are waiting to become a part of my spiritual existence.

So . . . I plan to spend time at God's Potting Bench -- a place where I can allow God's Word to till my heart the same as when I run my hands through potting soil before planting. Where I know I can trust God's Word to be the light, water, and food I need to grow, just like a plant. I want to go deeper in His Word so I can have a strong foundation, like the strong roots of a healthy plant. The results of my time at God's Potting Bench -- encouragement, peace, and deep roots and good fruit.