Sugar and spice, and everything nice. Putty. Stone. Variables. Contradictions. Flesh and bone. Mind, body, and spirit. Experiences and beliefs. Beauty. Filth.
I think I’ve decided on what I’ve found myself made of recently…
Glass.
If we take a hike back to Chem 101, glass is a fluid. But every single thing about your personal experience with glass will tell you exactly the opposite – if you’ve ever been sliced by a broken window pane, or had a tiny piece of a shattered bottle embedded in your bare foot, you would say that it is, if nothing else, more solid than you are.
If you observe it long enough, though, you’ll see what it really is. Because as decades pass, the fluid flows slowly, slowly, until it noticeably accumulates heavier at the bottom of a window frame.
So here’s what I know about me:¬† What you can know about me, like so many people, is rather dependent upon how long you have been interacting with or observing me. But, somewhat counter-intuitively, those initial impressions are probably very close to the truth. Make no mistake, shattered glass is sharp and will cut through your skin (just in case you were wondering)…if I throw something with a relatively mild force behind it at a relatively thick pane, the thing will often bounce right back at me…and these are facts, not just misperceptions. But it is also a fact that, given enough time, your experience will also tell you that glass is really a fluid. And you would never know that if you walk away after your projectile bounces off of it and never come back.
If you lean on me, I’ll often be strong enough to support you. With a hard hit, I can crack. These things are true. But the deeper reality is that I am made of something softer than a quick collision might imply…I need more than just my own strength to carry too much weight, because over time my softness becomes evident. And the cracks never last forever, because my soul is soft enough to flow back into wholeness. And I’m starting to notice that the better I know Jesus, the better I can allow him to be the strength I cannot be forever and the healing for the cracks I cannot fix quickly enough.
Glass is also transparent. But that’s a whole other issue…
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
