Broken Vessels

I was reflecting on the video I just posted from the Livestrong website. To see all of those faces. Young. Old. Friends. Families. Fighting the same battle. Walking the same path I am. It is both empowering and frustrating. So many lives. So many lost. I know the harsh reality of cancer. Our family has seen it take its toll. My brother lost the same battle I am fighting. Same disease. Same age of onset. People often try to find "reasons" why people get cancer. Obviously poor lifestyle choices increase the likelihood of certain types of cancer, but the reality is that it almost seems random. On the outside at least. I have no easy answers, and feel that oversimplification of causes or "curses" is painfully ignorant. I frame this disease as a path one must walk. We all have paths that stretch out before us. Many are equally difficult. Loss. Fear. Broken relationships. Financial Ruin. Illness. Age. And countless other challenges that we are faced with. No one is immune. We live in a fallen world, where good people die, and bad people prosper. Our world is often unfair. Life is often unfair. It is our response to that reality that is ultimately most important. My response is hope. Hope in a God that is outside and above this broken world, but not absent. He is a God that is moving, often quietly, but steady. Molding. Bending, but never breaking. He is the master potter. I am a broken vessel. At a young age I asked him to fill me. I have continued to this day. Fill me to overflowing. The more broken I am the more his life giving water flows out of me and saturates the world around me. Brokenness can be at once a curse from a broken world and a blessing from God. My hope today is that my brokenness will reach out. My sphere of influence will grow. Not I, But HE. Not my will, But Yahweh God's.