My youngest son Daniel is an artist. Specifically he is a ceramicist. He loves to make pottery. He loves to throw, beat, mold, and shape clay. His hands, strong yet gentle, manipulate the clay as it spins on the wheel. From a lump of ugly clay he forms and creates a masterpiece. If you walk through our home you will find a number of his pieces. I am so proud of him. I love showing my friends everything he has made.
My favorite piece is found in the living room of David’s Refuge on Frog’s Whisker Lane. Here is a picture of it.
It sits in the room that used to be David’s bedroom. What I like about it is that it isn’t perfect. In fact it has all kinds of imperfections that would have caused many artists to start over. But Daniel didn’t. He saw the masterpiece within the imperfections. He realized that beauty and worth is not defined by perfection, but is often created out of the most broken and imperfect parts of our lives.
If you buy one of Dan’s ceramic pieces he includes a business card that says the following:
I learned to make pottery while going through the worst pain in my life. It was during these trials that I began developing my skills and found a love for working with clay. I create my pottery with dimples and imperfections to signify that beauty can come out of the most broken situations. Daniel Pfohl
Daniel watched his older brother become his younger brother. He watched him lose his ability to speak, feed himself, and ultimately he watched him die. Clay and glazes and kilns and throwing wheels became a place he could process his emotions, beat out his anger at God and the world, and find a safe place to grieve and cry. From this place of brokenness Daniel discovered the beauty of imperfection. While it took time to heal and grieve Daniel was once again able to see that despite David’s blindness and other severe disabilities David was a Masterpiece. The dimples and imperfections made him beautiful.
I love it when I can learn from my own children. Daniel helped me see the wonder and beauty and majesty of David’s life. Out of his struggle, losses, and death a masterpiece was created. Now in the bedroom that watched the slow and cruel demise of David we serve and pour life into parents who are struggling to see the beauty in their own child’s disability. His brokenness, our brokenness is now a thing of beauty.
I’m not sure what dimples, bumps, or imperfections you are dealing with, but I hope and pray you will have the patience to see the beauty that can come from them. Your child is a masterpiece. Your spouse is masterpiece. You are a masterpiece.