A BROKEN VESSEL


 Once upon a time in a land faraway from mortal eyes exist a world. In this world, strength and power was the order of the world. Children from birth could lift a stone worth a tonne and crush a rock with their fingers. It was a world of magic and fantasy, mortals who stumbled upon this land have been rumored to go crazy from shock.


And in this land, there lived an old man who was revered for his wisdom. No one knew how old he is. Tales as old as time has been written about him, and in some, it was craftily written that he was born at the beginning of the world. Even the oldest chief who was a thousand years old with his bald head and hanging white beards has told the children of the village that he grew up to know the old man.


This old man lived in the outskirts of the land, at the edge of the great cliff that separated this magical world from the mortal world, nobody knows why, but he was always seen bearing two jugs of water on his back with the help of an ebony stick which he lay across his mighty shoulder. 

Many villagers speculate that he bears the jugs of water up and down the great mountain every day to renew his strength, others argued that it was the punishment the gods sentenced him to for living a long life and refusing to surrender to the embrace of death.

For centuries, the old man beared this two jugs of water up and down the mountain. One of the jug is sparkling clean, perfect on all its sides, hence bearing a full jug of water while the other jug was cracked in many places, hence, by the time the old man bears water from the mountain back to his house, the cracked jug will only be half full.


This continued, centuries passed, until one day, the cracked jug couldn’t bear the shame again. “Master, break my back against the rock of Disgust and discard me in the great waters of Nile” the cracked jug told his master one day, as he climbed the great mountain. “Why?” the Master asked.  

“I don’t serve you as I am supposed to, my sides bleed water every time, and instead of getting home with two jugs of water, you get home with one and half jug of water." the cracked jug answered.

The old man laughed with the great weight on his shoulder, and the heaven froze for a moment. The cracked jug was ashamed several times over, causing more cracks to appear on the sides of the jug.

The old man saw this, and smiled. “Do you see the flowers that grows along the path I always carry you through?” the master asked the cracked jug. “Yes, I do, they are beautiful, they bloom and sparkle in the light, blooming with a fragrance the heavens will be jealous of” the cracked jug answered.

“Good, they blossom like the stars at night because of your water that nourish them to health” the old man said. The cracked jug wondered for a minute, looking at the side of the perfect jug, and seeing no flowers, but barren space along the other jug’s side, realization hit and he smiled…

What am I trying to say?

God is a God that turns mess into message. God can make an oasis out of that part of your life that you thought nothing good can come out of. He made disciples out of fishermen. He made a stammerer into a leader and a sheepherder like David into a mighty King and Warrior. If He can make fishermen into Apostles, what do you think he cannot make you into?


In God’s Love,
Peace Okunola.

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