The Wasteland: Alternate Ending Edition
This could easily be the earliest “re-post” post ever. At least in these parts. But here’s the thing. I got stumped the other day finishing up The Wasteland. The desert place caught up with me, leaving me a little dry around the edges. I’m not one who often asks for help; too proud for that.
But I did something here I’ve never done before. I asked you to finish the post for me.
And some of you did just that. With cool, refreshing words that filled me up.
But I know not all of you have the chance to come back and splash around in the comments. I didn’t want you to miss out on this chance to soak up the liquid sunshine these readers poured out.
So put on your galoshes and open your umbrellas:
The Wasteland: Alternate Ending Edition.
(And you can still weigh in if you didn’t get a chance the first time around.)
:: :: ::
Parched. Desolate. Impoverished.
Empty. Fallow.
Depleted.
This is barren. This is the wasteland.
This is the woman, standing lifeless in withering field, sunscorched. Hands crack open as she labors to find life among brittle stalks, knowing she will never labor to bring life from her own womb, dry and fruitless as this desolate soil.
This woman is nameless, faceless. Known to us even today only as Samson’s mother.
:: (more…)
Guest Post: Down to the Potter’s House
My friend Elizabeth tends to have some pretty amazing insights into our relationship with the Father. Sometimes she processes on the page, taking what God’s saying and working it out by writing. But she also has the ability to process on a canvas. I thought the combination of the two in this case was pretty compelling, and hard to resist. She’s taught me a lot over the past few years about brokenness. I find myself rather honored she allowed me to add her voice to A Different Story today. — Lyla
::
God shapes us in His hands. He is the Potter. But even though we are the clay, we tend to decide for on our own when we’ve reached completion. So we set ourselves on the shelf to dry. But God looks at us and sees what He wants us to be. The beautiful and amazing vessel that He wants to create with His very own precious hands. So He takes us off the shelf. And He breaks us. He has to, because we’ve made ourselves unmoldable. Sometimes He shatters us beyond recognition. But then He picks up each piece of our broken lives and dusts it off. He reshapes it, molds it, smoothes the edges and works with that piece until, through our surrender and His masterful hands, He creates the perfect piece. Then He puts that one in place and reaches for the next. On and on He goes, working with every single piece until we are put back together.
If you have ever tried to re-piece a broken pot, you know that some parts will never fit back together. There are holes and gaps left between the pieces. And you can never fully hide all the cracks. A broken pot will never look exactly the way it did before it broke. But the holes and gaps and cracks become a thing of beauty and glory. For as the Potter puts the pieces back together, He also places His light inside of us. It bursts forth from those holes and cracks so that all who walk by and see the pot will be drawn closer by the light spilling from inside.
“So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as it seemed best to him.” Jeremiah 18:3-4
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