Once I came across a beautiful mask, it was lovely but had been broken.  The owner said to just throw it away, but I wanted to see if I could somehow glue it back together. My goal was to restore it to its former glory.  Perhaps it could be fixed, put together again like new. 

Unfortunately, although I tried to glue it back together, it was a wasted effort.  When I looked at the patch together mask it looked like it had once been broken. It was not lovely anymore; it was now a formerly lovely mask. Sometimes broken things can never be repaired to what they once were, at least we don’t have the ability to make things new once again on our own, but I know someone who does.

Staring at the sadly repaired mask, I realized that when we try to fix our own broken and inadequate selves the result is much the same. Our lives are very much like that beautiful yet broken mask.  We can only make a broken life, a formerly whole life repaired by gluing it together, piecing the broken pieces in place.  Just like with the mask, it is impossible to be made it whole again through our own effort. What we attempt to repair will show very obviously to observers that it has been broken and poorly repaired.  Scars and cracks showing through, missing chips marring a once smooth surface. No matter how hard we try, we cannot make new what once was broken.

There is only one who could take broken things (whether they be lives or masks) and make them completely new.  He doesn’t just piece together our broken parts, a patchwork job. He doesn’t put glue to hold together broken pieces. Instead, he completely restores and makes us entirely new.  That’s what God does, our Potter. He takes all the broken pieces of our life and softens them.  He melts them and molds them anew.  Putting us back together completely transformed.  No longer broken or cracked, no longer damaged or unrepairable, and with no indication that there had once been any damage to repair. You see he molds us and makes us brand new, while removing any imperfections or flaws. 

When he sees broken ones, he doesn’t turn them away or throw them out like the owner of the broken mask wanted me to do.  He also doesn’t just glue them together and do a sloppy repair job that never truly brings wholeness. Like I attempted to do with the broken mask, because it was all I had the ability to do.  Yet my efforts were futile. No, instead he makes us brand new, and better than before. The mask I had patched together looked sad and ruined. Though it was glued into one piece it was not whole. That’s the way it is for so many in this life.  They have attempted to glue back the damaged parts of themselves. They are all together, yet not whole. Perhaps that’s how it is for you. I challenge you to allow God to take you in his hands, to soften you and mold you anew. To remake you whole, no longer ruined or broken. Let him be to you the potter he longs to be and you his masterpiece.  

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19