Are you a Cracked Pot or a Perfect Ming Vase?

By Elizabeth Nelson

I came across this story,  one that I've ready before and thought I'd share with you.  Are you a cracked pot or a Ming Vase?  Have you been put on this Earth to look good or to serve?   One serves a purpose, the other is only good as arm trophy.  

As a fireman's daughter, I've as learned that the cracks in a pot will reflect the light from the candle within it, but if we put the top on the Ming Vase, it will suffocate and take the very life from candle inside.

Chinese Proverb - tale of two pots:

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole
which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. 

"I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?"

"That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them, sometimes it takes a lot of looking.

Personally, I would rather be the cracked pot that I am, ready to be used by the Master Potter that by design created me to reflect His light from within, than be a Ming Vase, suffocating the life out of those that put their love within me, sitting beautiful, fragile and idle on a shelf, just gathering dust behind a glass door. So, to all of my cracked pot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path.