A new blog to contain answers to prompts |
Since my old blog "Everyday Canvas " ![]() |
Prompt: "The tests of life are not to break you but to make you." Write about this in your Blog entry today. ------------ I am not so sure the tests of life have intellects that can come up with any kind of an aim. That is, the aim of going after us and to make or break us. It is up to us, however, to make the best of every situation and stay on top, at the end. Let me come up, then, with a scenario involving a blue earthen bowl to illustrate the tests of life. Suppose, once, on the highest shelf, there once was a favorite piece of pottery I've always liked. But then one day... The first shard of the pottery felt like a betrayal... It was a bowl I had made with my own hands, coiled and smoothed over hours in a dusty studio, glazed a deep, hopeful blue. I had placed it on the highest shelf, a trophy of my patience. But the earthquake, a brief, violent shrug of the earth, had other ideas. My blue bowl lay on the floor now, shattered into a dozen jagged pieces. I wanted to put it together again. As I worked at it and while piecing my blue bowl back together with seams of glue in shining gold, I understood. I understood why the earthquake and why the shattering... The bowl now sits finished on the table. Yet, it is not the same as the one that had sat on the shelf. It is infinitely more beautiful, more complex, more valuable. The web of golden veins tell a story of resilience, of fracture and repair. This happened because it was tested, and in its breaking, its true character surfaced. As such, life’s tests are the earthquake. They are sudden, violent, and often inexplicable shocks, and they threaten to shatter our original form. At first, we may think they are meant to destroy us, just to prove our fragility. But they are not. They are something similar to the kiln’s fire when it first formed us, and now, they are testing the quality of our spirit. And the breaking itself is not the end. It is the beginning of the truest creation. Our scars, our fractures, our healed-over pains are not flaws to be hidden in shame. They are the seams of gold. Possibly, no life is unbroken to sit prettily on a high shelf, untouched and gathering dust. The goal is a life that is mended and richly patterned with gold. It is a mosaic of all the times we are tested, but at the end, it shows we succeeded. And with flying colors. |