Finding Perfection in the Ugly Mug

This is me and my friend Angelene.  She's loud, a little crazy, randomly breaks out in song, and totally gets me.  I adore this woman.  For a couple of summers our families vacationed together in the Outer Banks and those times will forever be some of my favorite summer memories. 

 Like the time we were so fancy we had boxed wine and Cheez-Its, or the time she and my husband had an epic battle with the house decor.  Sigh…

Or the time we went to a pottery store in the OBX looking for the perfect coffee mug and instead ended up getting invited to a bluegrass concert by a creepy guy who kept insisting on showing us his backyard where I'm pretty sure he was going to throw us in a hole he had dug and go all Silence of the Lambs on us.  Aaaah…good times.  And we found this.  We quickly and appropriately named it the Ugly Mug.  

We weren’t enthralled by its beauty that's for sure.  You see, I have a pottery collection of beautiful mugs that I’ve found on my various travels.  I LOVE my pottery mugs.  They’re weighty and beautiful, colorful, all completely different from the other, and I could tell you exactly where I found each one of them.  So when we were looking around this store in search of another mug of beauty to add to my collection, you can imagine our disappointment when this was the best we could find.

It’s uneven.  

Its color is not one I would have picked.  

It’s a little too small for the amount of coffee I like to drink.  

Its rim is rough which doesn't feel great while I'm drinking from it.  

The handle is too small to hold well.  

And the base of it…well it’s just ugly.  

So why on earth would I buy it?  

I'm so glad you asked.

As Angelene and I stood in that store holding our ugly mugs, actually laughing and sarcastically making fun of them (we can be a tid bit naughty when we get together), the owner came over and started to tell us about them.  At first we weren't interested at all as he explained that he used sea shells to add the less than perfect decoration to them, and how he took them off the pottery wheel a little earlier than his other mugs thus causing their uneven shape.  But then he said something that stopped us dead in our sarcastic tracks.  He said, “Ya know, I didn't add any color to those mugs.  I let the fire give them their color and texture”.  

Drop the mic.

Shut up and take my money.

We looked at each other and knew immediately we had to buy these mugs.

I won't speak for Ang, but I knew in that moment God was trying to speak to me about my constant search for perfection.  I didn't want to add an ugly mug to my collection.  It would ruin it!  And yet… 

Isn't that so often exactly what we say to God when the story of our life takes a turn we never wanted?  I don't want this to happen!  How could you make me go through this, God?  Where are you in all this?  My life was going pretty well and now this??  You’re ruining it!  

All of the sudden like the swift slamming of a door we find ourselves in a fire.  A fire we never wanted to be in and we can’t see our way out of.  

I heard Beth Moore once describe it this way:

Sometimes God will keep you from the fire.

Sometimes God will deliver you out of the fire.

But in my experience, God will often instead walk you through the fire.  That’s how we get our color and texture anyway right?

I hate the fire.  

And I’ve been in quite a few of them. Yet while it’s so hard to get perspective while you’re in them, God has never failed to give me His perspective after He’s walked me through them; life changing perspective I could only have gained from walking it out.  Here’s some important things to understand about those fiery times in your life:

God doesn't cause them.  So often we blame Him for the hard things we’re going through, but fail to give Him credit for all the good things.  The amplified version of John 10:10 says, “the thief comes only in order to steal kill and destroy.  I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).”  I'll often use this verse as a filter with which to sift my trials.  Does what I'm going through fall under steal, kill, and destroy?  Or does it fall under abundant life?  Steal, kill, and destroy never come from God.  Know who your battle is truly with.

Even though God doesn't cause the fire, He can use it if we’ll let Him.  I love what Romans 8:28 says, “We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to His design and purpose.”  Do you love God?  Then He can work good out of whatever you’re going through.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve held desperately on to that verse.  

We have a choice.  How we handle ourselves in the fire is vital to how God can use it.  Will we go through it fearfully kicking and screaming with weeping and gnashing of teeth?  Or will we go through it peacefully and gracefully with the quiet assurance that God will never leave us or forsake us, striving to glean every lesson we could possibly get out of it?  The choice is ours.  When I was younger, I would often opt for the weeping and gnashing of teeth route.  Nothing graceful about me there.  Hell hath no fury like Salina slightly inconvenienced and not getting her way!  You know what I learned though?  God would keep taking me around that same mountain over and over in different ways.  I could imagine Him saying, “Are you ready to do this my way yet?”  After about the third time around I would finally say, “Yes God.  I'm ready.  Let’s do this.”  It was only after fully surrendering it to Him that I was able to see all of what He was trying to teach me.  

This mug…

To be honest with you,  I don’t use it very often.  It’s not one I bring out when serving coffee to company.  But when I do bring it out, I always tell its story about how God used this mug to help me find beauty in its imperfection.  There’s beauty in a life that’s survived the fire.  It has a story to tell. The fires of life can leave us with scars, some figurative, some literal.  And we don't want to be constantly showing off our scars for others to see. There’s a time and place for that, and God has always been faithful to show me those times and places where He wants me to share the stories of what He’s walked me through.  But as I look at my Ugly Mug I’m reminded that much like myself, the very thing that could have destroyed it is the very thing that gives it its color, texture, and makes it unique.  It may be a little rough around the edges and hard to hold at times, but it was molded and shaped by the Potter all the same and has been called according to His purpose. 

So I think I’ll go pour myself another cup of coffee (in one of my pretty mugs!) and give my friend Ang a call…maybe plan our next vacation…??!

Till next time…