Even broken pieces of glass can be melding into something new...

John 6:12
A couple a months ago, I ventured to Ann Arbor to go someplace where nobody knew my name.  I planned to visit a few sites while I was there and one of them was Ann Arbor Art Center.  I eat art [nerd].  While I was there, the center just happened to be holding a glass molding/blowing demonstration.  Glass manipulation [we'll call it] is something I have seen on TV but never in person, so I was geeked!  The glass blower was a professional, of course, and walked us through the intimate details of making glass jewelry etc.  So she transformed sticks of glass into beautiful yet fragile pieces.  To see how fire manipulates the elements of the glass was amazing! What was even more amazing was how the fire made it easy to shape and mold.

I happened to be reading John 6 for some reason which tells the story of the miracle through the fish and bread and came across verse 12 which reads: "When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, 'gather the pieces that are left over.  Let nothing be wasted'"  This scripture hit me so hard and I immediately got the revelation that God does not like waste.  Because God does not waste, he won't let even the broken pieces of our lives to be disposed of.  When things work out and everything is copacetic, it's easy to live life.  But it's when we experience change in our lives that cause brokenness, we have to really exercise trust with the left over or shattered pieces being restored to something even more beautiful.  You often hear the adage about being tried by fire.  Fire hurts but is transformative in nature. Often what accompanies change is a process that is painful. But the process is the fire that welds the broken pieces back together while God's hands shape and form the unrecognizable areas of our lives into something new. He is notorious for making something out of nothing. Trust that nothing in your life is in vain. Not even your pain. But that your process will bring someone else success.

2 Corinthians 1:4 (MSG) says "He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us." We go through to make it through. So if you're lost in 'Woe is Me-ville', just remember there is always someone tied to the end of your road who is at the beginning of theirs.

Nothing. Is. In . Vain.