A chance encounter with a random stranger birthed a deep affinity for Rae Dunn pottery last spring. It started innocently enough with a cute little platter but quickly spiraled into an obsession including but not limited to, multiple trips to TJ Maxx. In three different cities. In two states. In the same day. (More often than I’d care to admit.)
Kitchen photos reveal my curated collection of the cream-and-black pottery with charming sayings and perfectly-imperfect curves and dents. The simple words of the sturdy mugs, especially, sink into my soul and I long to identify with them- to be sought after and witty and perfectly-imperfect, myself.
One of my most treasured coffee mugs reads, “You’ve Got This.” It has been my own personal cheerleader on mornings when motivation eludes me. I grab “You’ve Got This,” pour myself a stiff coffee with cream, and feel ready to tackle that to-do list. One particular day I was uncharacteristically chipper and didn’t need my pick-me-up mug. “You’ve Got This” hung on a hook by the coffee maker while I cleaned the counters.
Until the unthinkable happened. Apparently I wiped a bit too vigorously and down came the mug.
“You’ve Got This” hit the counter so fast that I did not, in fact, have it.
Devastation ensued. I cradled “You’ve Got This” in one hand while holding its handle in the other. (My hands weren’t close together- FYI- for the visual). The options were gluing the handle back on, but not being able to actually use the mug because what if it broke (again)? Or I could throw it in the trash.
That thought made me sad. I couldn’t just toss “You’ve Got This” to the curb. But with a once-broken handle, what was the reason to keep it?
Inspiration at last: “You’ve Got This,” the handle-less mug, could hold my makeup brushes! Brilliant.
It wasn’t until several days later when I absent-mindedly opened the bathroom cupboard and saw my handle-broken-off You’ve Got This mug-turned-makeup-brush-holder that the irony sunk in. There was my once-prized perfectly-imperfect mug sitting in the cupboard. In the bathroom cupboard, of all places. Broken.
And there it was. The Rae Dunn treasure I had spent months searching for… the piece I could truly identify with at last. Hiding in the cupboard sat my trusty cheerleader, used and broken (and a little dirty), not even carrying out its intended purpose. Instead of holding coffee, it had become a vessel for imperfection-hiders.
In that mug, in that moment, I saw myself: a cheerleader all my life (lacking the physical aspects involved, of course.) Used and broken? Check and check. And really, don’t we all desire to fulfill a grand purpose? Instead, most days I find myself hiding in a (figurative) messy cupboard, too. And oh, the lengths at which I’ve gone to mask imperfections…
“You’ve Got This.”
Indeed I do. I’ve got imperfect brokenness.
Somedays I hide. The purpose in my life certainly isn’t always what I’d imagined it would be.
But I wasn’t discarded, either.
I am seen and appreciated by the one who purchased me every. single. day. I am a vessel, too, for Him. I can hold what He places inside me and then use those things to bring out beauty in others. Because He makes beautiful things… out of the dust.
out of the dust 