How many times a day do you greet someone with a variation of the simple question, “How are you?” which is answered with the standard reply of “fine, well, good”, a more creative “just peachy” or as my dad used to say, “fair to middlin’ ” which would likely be a more honest assessment.
What if the next time you asked that question of someone, he replied, “I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.” Whoa! That’s what is commonly known these days as TMI…too much information. I wonder how a cashier would react if a customer answered her cheery, “How are you today” in such a way?
Truth is, we are surrounded by broken vessels, or maybe we are one of them. We get up to face the day, feeling broken, as David did when he penned Psalms 31. I won’t quote the entire chapter, but just read a little of how he felt:
9Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.
10For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
11I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.
12I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.
David felt alone and rejected, not only by his enemies, but by his neighbors. I don’t really know why everyone ran the other way when they saw him coming, but we do tend to shy away from negative people. We really don’t want to know the answer to our “how are yous” because we don’t know how to deal with the problems of others. We have enough of our own.
Or maybe we avoid people in the throes of life altering situations because we don’t know what to say or how to help. If we are around them, we simply avoid the subject at all costs. A friend of mine is going through such an ordeal, and I asked her once how it went the first time she was with a certain group of people after they found out her circumstances. She said it was like the big elephant in the room that no one mentioned.
So what are we to do? We’re not counselors; we don’t know the answers, especially the whys. How can we minister to broken vessels, those who may feel alone in a crowd, who are hurting inside more than words can express, who feel forgotten, unloved, rejected?
I remember once I asked God these same things. I was overwhelmed at the magnitude of the problems of someone I knew, and I didn’t know how to help her. God’s answer was simple, “Just love her.” Ah! That I could do. I can’t fix people’s problems, no matter how much I’d love to be able to. I can’t change others. I don’t always have just the right words of wisdom, comfort, or advice, but I can simply love them. Love as in an action verb, not just a feeling in my heart, or even the words said out loud.
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:18
Show your love in concrete ways; make a phone call, send a card, give a hug, and above all, be a good listener. I read one time that many times the best way to counsel someone was to just be there for her, and listen. Listen with an unbiased, non-judgmental spirit; show her you are hurting because she is. “Weep with those who weep.” How sad that David felt ignored and forgotten, like a dead man out of mind.
But how are we to know that someone needs us if he answers “fine” when we ask how he’s doing? What masks we wear sometimes! Ask the Lord to give you a perceptive heart, so that you can see beyond the mask. Actually, it sometimes doesn’t doesn’t take that much perception to read someone. Just pay attention to his countenance, or as we say now, his body language.
Proverbs 15:10 says, ” A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.”
If we really take the time and the effort, I believe we’ll know when a friend or loved one, an acquaintance or maybe a person in line next to us, needs an encouraging word, a pat on the back, or even a smile.
Jesus said that God sent him to bind up the brokenhearted. I don’t think it’s presumptuous of me to pray that God would use me in that way, as an instrument of His love. That my heart would be attuned to broken vessels all around me, that I would be able to feel what they are feeling, to suffer with them, to share in their sorrows, and anxieties, and pain, so that I would fully be able to understand, to comfort, to encourage, and to pray for them to the Healer of hearts.
I had to look up this poem, because the first line has been niggling at the edges of my mind. It’s a simple rhyme, but conveys what I am feeling in my heart:
P.S. I thought I was all done, ending with the nice poem and all, but I feel the need to add one more thing. In our desire to minister to broken vessels, we need to be aware that those most in need of our love and understanding are those who are hardest to love. I’m talking about those who are social outcasts, those with mental disorders, those with bad attitudes, those who make bad choices, those who just annoy us to death, even those who need the same help time and time again. There are people who are not only broken vessels, but absolutely shattered, who seem to be beyond reach or hope.
My prayer is that Jesus, who was Himself despised and rejected of men, would help me not to be another who ignores and rejects these shattered vessels, that He would give me a heart of compassion for them, and that He would show His love for them through me.
Great blog Gail. I was ministered to for I too am one of those broken vessels who’s been fortunate enough to experience a healing as a process. Every week I go to Westville Correction and lead a Bible Study with about 75 broken vessels. It is one the most fulfilling things I do as a believer in Christ. I don’t go as one who has answers and try to heal them—I go as a cracked vessel and encourage them to look to Jesus who has their healing in His hands. You touched a heartstring in your words and as I read I aws reminded of the story of the Velveteen Rabbit. You remember the story about how the rabbitt asks the skin horse about how to become real. He tells him tah when a child loves REALLY loves you , then you become real. The rabbit asks does it hurt? He answers truthfully, ‘sometimes”. Then he asks does it happen all at once or bit by bit. I love this answer for it speaks volumes about our own process. He says: “It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to carefully kept. Generally by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Thanks for writing, thanks for challenging us to be REAL
Referring to your question at the start of your blog what vessel I am .I’ve never decided on a certain kind I just want to be one God can use.
I do believe he has always used me to help others as long as I can remeber. by our home always being open to anyone needing a place to stay. Several years ago I signed to be a friendly visitor to older people who didn’t
have any one to visit with them some no childern, some to far away or too busy except a phone call saying “I love you”
in word but not in deed.I never really thought how lonely a Person could be until I got to the same place in life. Now I have some too far away to visit very often. Some nearby
are very helphful.Thank God he is always near to bless and comfort and for caring family.
But the ones that have no one are also some of the broken vessels. there are so many needs for all the hurting ones. Then there are the little childern unloved and abused.
No wonder the Word tells us to pray without ceasing.
There have been times I’ve thought I’m too old to help anyone, but that isn’t so. As long as we have breath we can pray. When I ask God to show me some one that needs help, and he has different times in different ways.
Anything I’ve said is not meant for any good I’ve done but to give God the praise for any way he has used me as a useful vessel.
Gail,
Thank you so so much for being such a great friend, role model, counselor, and one of my favorite shoulders to lean on. Thank you for letting God work through you in many ways. Thank you for not giving up, not breaking completely under the struggles of your own life. And most of all, Thank God for strengthening you enough to strengthen others.
I am so amazed when I think of how God put people in my life ,years ago, knowing they would be an encouragement to me at this time in my life.
Thank you for helping me pick up some of my “broken pieces.” : )
Gail, what Grandma wrote made my light bulb light up. I would always pray by thanking the lord for all our blessings and helping those in need, but now I will also include to use me as a vessel to help others in need. I think that means so much more than asking the Lord to help them, but instead help me help them. Does that make any sense?
That was a very nice thought for me today, Thanks….