The Cracked Pot

A water bearer had two large pots, one hung on each end of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house. But the cracked pot always arrived only half full.
For two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one-and-a-half pots full of water to his master's house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its
accomplishments, fulfilled in the design for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was unable to accomplish what it had been made to do. After two years of enduring this bit¬ter shame, the pot spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself and I apologise to you." "Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?" "I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack on my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Be¬cause of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said. The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and was cheered somewhat. But at the end of the trail, it still felt the old shame because it had leaked out half its load, and so again the pot apologised to the bearer for its failure. The bearer said to the pot, "Did you not notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, and not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we've walked back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to deco¬rate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."

Moral

Each of us has flaws. We're all cracked pots. In God's great economy, nothing goes to waste. He uses our flaws to grace the world. Don't be afraid of your flaws. Acknowledge them, and you, too, can bring something beautiful to life. "Unravelling life's mysteries and discovering life's secrets (which are, in fact, neither mysterious nor secretive) may take the courage and determination found only in a self-motivated pursuit," said Peter McWilliams.
When life seems truly ex-cremental, we can moan and groan or we can even in the midst of anger, terror, confusion, and pain tell our¬selves, "There must be a lesson in here someplace." The classroom of life is perfectly arranged so that we learn what we need to learn, when we need to learn it, just the way we need to learn it. The operative word in all that is need, not want.
We don't always learn what we want to learn. Sometimes we learn by an informal, seemingly accidental process — an over¬heard comment in an elevator, a friend's offhand re mark, or the line of a song from a passing radio. There are no accidents. The real teacher is you. You're the one who must decide, of all that comes your way, what is true and what's not, what applies to you and what does not, what you learn now and what you promise to learn later.
The best that life can do is present lessons to you. The learning is up to you. Be aware of your body, scan it from head to toe. How does it feel? Feel your emotions. Notice your thoughts. Now, one question. Who noticed the body? Who felt the feelings? Who observed the mind? Maybe it was something other than the body, greater than the emotions, more magnificent than the mind. Maybe it was you.
As remarkable as our bodies are, we know that we are more remarkable than that. The mind is a marvellous servant; it just makes a poor master. Emotions are too often too wrong to be who we truly are. There is a 'You' to be discovered. Life is, if nothing else, a persistent teacher. It will repeat a lesson over and over until it is learnt. How does life know we've learnt? When we change our behaviour. Until then, even if we intellectually know something, we haven't really learnt it.

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape."