Thought For The Week

There is a story told about an elderly Chinese woman who had two buckets to carry water, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her back. One of the buckets had been around a while with holes and cracks. The other bucket was perfectly new and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the bucket with the holes and cracks arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman only bringing home a bucket and a half of water. Of course the perfect bucket was very proud of its accomplishments. But the poor old bucket was ashamed of its own imperfections and felt 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 of my cracks and the holes in my side. It causes so much water to leak all the way back to your house." The old woman smiled: "Look underneath you, there are flowers all on your side, but not on the other. 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 bless our home."

There the story ends but there is a message in there too. As we journey through Lent, it is a good time to get comfortable with our own cracks and flaws. We all have them, with no exception. Some we can fix but there are some that we will always carry with us. By accepting our own unique cracks and flaws we begin to realize that there is great beauty to be found within us, near us and around us. God is the first one to see this incredible beauty. Lent allows us to begin to see it too.