Crayons

I remember the joyful feeling of opening a new box of crayons so well.  The potential of that box of crayons was just endless to a young mind.  Oh, the pictures I would color!  The sharp, little Crayolas were lined up so smartly in their neat, colorful rows.  It was perfect.

But, without fail, soon those perfect little crayons would break.  I would lose my favorite blue.  I would use the yellow down to a little nub.  Someone would swipe my red.  Eventually I would cast aside that box of crayons for a newer one and the process would start all over.

A few years ago, my kids got a neat gift for Christmas.  They placed old, broken crayons in this little machine.  A light bulb heated up the crayons and melted them down into a mold.  The old, useless crayons were reborn as new rainbow crayons.  My kids were delighted!

Have you ever felt like a crayon?  Useless and cast aside?  Unable to leave a mark on the world?  Broken or lost?  No matter how broken, useless, lost, or purposeless we feel, God can still use us.  He never casts us aside because of our brokenness.  Rather, he can use our brokenness to make something beautiful in our world. 

We never lose our potential in God’s eyes.  He sees us, the broken and sinful people that we are, but also sees our potential, because “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” Ephesians 2:10.  Sometimes it takes a little heat to make us change into what God would have us to be.  It’s the difficult times that refine us, make us stronger, and more capable of doing God’s will.