dirt is a beautiful thing

Often, we hear the word dirt and think of derogatory terms or phrases: "dirt beneath my feet," "dirt-cheap," "dish the dirt," you get the idea. We often think of it as something that needs to be removed. We clean it off of our floors, our clothes, or, in my case, my dog's paws (all the time). We do this because, the more dirt we remove, the cleaner something is and, thus, the closer it is to restored. Some dirt, though, never comes out.

Just after I got engaged, I was given a beautiful, beaded, white purse with "Bride" written across it. Not a week later, before I could even wear it, I spilled coffee all over it. As hard as I tried, it is now an off-white purse.

Life can be this way. We scrub and scrub and scrub, and yet that dirt will not go away. It can become less noticeable, but we know it is still there. I hate when things are imperfect. Stains drive me crazy, and I will relentlessly try to get it out. I will fixate on the stain until I am so frustrated that I cannot think of anything BUT the stain. I do the same thing with my life. I see the imperfections, the dirt, and I scrub until my arms give out. At the end of it all, the dirt is still there.

I recently had dinner with my parents, and my dad said something that stuck with me (as both my parents' wisdom often does). He said, "what is clay?" I thought to myself, "where is he going with this?" Then, he answered, "Clay is just dirt. Dirt that comes from all over. Some dirt has minerals in it, some has decaying things, but it is all dirt." He went on to say that dirt becomes clay when given into the hands of someone who knows how to make that hodgepodge of discarded things into clay and, eventually, into a beautiful creation.

"Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?"

- Isaiah 45:9

I will never get all the yucky things in my dirt to become porcelain. I will never be able to change the past or alter the future. That is up to the Lord. He is the one who works, and kneads, and creates a beautiful, complex, and perfectly imperfect creation. Who are we, the clay, to say that we can work ourselves into perfection? Dirt does not simply become clay. It must be soaked, dried, worked, and spun. That takes something other than the clay itself. That takes a Creator with a plan in mind the moment that dirt is gathered- a Creator who simply picked the dirt up from the ground, not caring what was in it or where it was from, only caring that the dirt will soon be a beautiful creation.

So, we do not need to be ashamed of our dirt. We do not need to tirelessly try to perfect ourselves. We will never succeed by white knuckling our way through life. That is why we need Jesus, the Potter, the Creator. The moment we see our dirt and let God use it, the moment the work can begin. Then, when others admire that pot with streaks of red, brown, and black, we can tell them that each artistic mark came from the mix of things in that dirt. A mix of things that the Potter picked up, dirtied his own hands, and made to display His incredible work.