These pictures are screenshots from a video I took on my phone last night during a long and eventful storm! Temperatures have been a bit on the warmer side here in the UK this week and it’s quite humid.
So, the lightning started around 1.30am, bright flashes, like a dodgy florescent light that flickers on and off randomly. Then came the rain, and the odd distant rumble. The rain became torrential, the lightning came in bursts and the thunder got closer and louder.
Me being me, I was sat in a chair facing the big French doors, recording it, looking up the live lightning map, checking the absolutely pitiful Met Office weather forecast, which said 40% chance of rain and not a hint of thunder or lightning! Yet this was the biggest and longest lasting storm we’ve had in a long time.
So those two pictures…
The first one was incredibly bright though the lightning grounded itself a lot further away than it would appear. The second one, just a split second after, was almost the echo of the first, the remnant of that powerful bolt! As I’ve looked at them this morning, I see God at work and hear him speaking through it…
The first picture shows the suddeness with which events can overtake us. Things we never expected happen, quite literally like a bolt from the blue. Where they strike they cause damage, devastation, sometimes ongoing destruction, like a fire that rages through a house, a forest… What remains is so damaged that it will take a long time to be renewed and restored…
And then, the second picture, which looks like threads of gold. It is what remains after the powerful, violent strike. It reminds me of the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi, translated as “golden joinery “. Broken pottery is repaired using precious metal, often gold, and lacquer. It not only restores the broken item to usefulness, but adds beauty and value.
I believe this is what the Lord does for us when something has devastated our lives. He gently puts us back together, using precious gold, to make us stronger and more enduring, more beautiful (in spiritual terms) than we were before, and even more valuable than before because the Master Craftsman was our restorer and he added that gold, something of himself, during the restoration process.
How beautiful an image! How loving a God! What kindness does our Lord bestow on us! Every pot can be repaired. You are never too broken… ❤️
I’ve been reminded of a poem I have loved for many years. I don’t know who the author was, but all credit to them…
My life is but a weaving, between my Lord and me.
I cannot see the colours, he worketh steadily.
Oft times he weaveth sorrow and I, in foolish pride,
Forget he sees the upper, and I the underside.
Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skillful hands
As the THREADS OF GOLD AND SILVER in the pattern he has planned.
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 NIV
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
Isaiah 61:3 NKJV
To console those who mourn (in Zion), To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”
The Finished Work 