The Broken Spout

Have you ever received a “gift” from someone you loved, and only years later you realized the “value” of their gift? This happened to me near my wedding day many years ago.

My mother made the best sweet tea I’ve ever tasted! Yet, she never drank tea! She was a coffee drinker, but she made fresh tea everyday for my sister and me. With my wedding quickly approaching, gifts were coming in steadily, and one of those gifts was from my precious mom. She presented me with a beautifully wrapped box, and to my great surprise, there was a beautiful teapot inside. She wanted to be sure that I had a lovely vessel in which to steep tea for daily glasses of my favorite beverage.

For many years, this was my only teapot, and I used it several days of the week to make sweet tea that my husband and I so enjoyed. The months and years passed, and one day, to my great disappointment, I found the spout on my beautiful teapot had broken off. I knew it would never pour tea again without spilling all over the place, and its beauty was diminished.

Fast forward to a different time in my life … a time when I had begun to collect teapots and teacups from all over the world! Each time my husband ministered in another country, he would come home with teapots, teacups, and sometimes complete tea sets! Each one was unique and beautiful! Whether from China, Spain, England, Ukraine … the elegance of each was unparalleled. Of all the elegant vessels for tea, the ones from England were my favorite.

As I was unpacking boxes nearly twenty years ago after our move from New England back to the south, I found the teapot my mother had given me so many decades before. It had been carefully wrapped for the move … yes, even though its spout was broken. As I unwrapped it, I suddenly realized it still had purpose, and that it was more special to me than any of the other spectacular teapots I had collected. It was a gift to me from someone who loved me so very, very much.

I believe this is the way God sees each of us. He doesn’t care if we have “flaws.” He loves us unconditionally, and He knows He can “use us” even in our less-than-perfect state. In Jeremiah 18, God told the prophet, “Go down to the potter’s house…”. When Jeremiah arrived, he saw the potter 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 seemed best to him.” Sometimes, we overlook, or perhaps never discover, God’s intended purpose for our life. In Romans 9, the apostle Paul uses the metaphor of a potter shaping clay to illustrate God’s sovereignty over humanity. From the lump of clay, the Potter has complete power. And, from that same lump, He has the power to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor. God uses some vessels for honorable or holy purposes … “vessels,” or people, who receive His mercy and are set apart to serve him. Some vessels are dishonorable and must be “cleansed” by God’s mercy and the blood of His Son, Jesus, to be set apart as holy and useful to the Master, ready for every good work. The choice is ours.

In thinking of my own life, I was not always an “honorable” vessel for God, but by His mercy and grace, my life changed when I was introduced to Jesus at the age of twenty-three. He accepted me as a lost, tarnished, dishonorable vessel, and He molded me into an honorable vessel for His use. Since that time, I’ve been placed “on The Potter’s wheel” many times as God is continuously reshaping me for His purpose to be accomplished in my life. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord…”.

Recently, I turned my beautiful, treasured, broken teapot upside down, and to my great surprise, I discovered that it was made in Staffordshire, England. The home of my favorite teapots! And though it remains broken, the “treasure” can still be found on the inside. Likewise, as we are but “jars of clay,” God has chosen to fill us with His priceless message that we may be “vessels of honor” for Him.