Turning Flaws Into Art: Recognizing the Hand of Lord in Our Lives
by Jeff Lindsay
During
a visit to Taiwan in September, we visited the National Museum in
Taipei and saw one of the world's great works of art, the Jadeite Cabbage.
An unknown Chinese artist apparently in the nineteenth century took a
highly flawed piece of jade with uneven color, blotches, cracks and
veins, and used those flaws as part of the design.
The
white stone became the stalk of a cabbage and the darker green
regions became the leaves and a couple of magnificent insects. Cracks
became delicate veins on the stalks.
Jadeite Cabbage
In
the end, the work was far more beautiful and lifelike than if it had
been made from flawless uniform jade. It was almost as if the jade
had been designed to be a cabbage, but this was really the result of
the hand of the master making the most of imperfect raw materials.
What
a fitting analogy for how the Lord deals with our flaws, if we'll let
Him sculpt us. I was pleased to see that the Oct. 2014 Ensign
has a brief article making this point (Ellen C. Jensen, "The Jadeite Cabbage").
This
sculpture is the highlight of Taiwan's National Palace Museum, which
contains much of the most precious art that once was in the Forbidden
City in Beijing, brought to Taiwan by Chiang Kai Shek. For most
visitors it is the leading attraction of that splendid museum.
There
are many ways the Lord can turn our flaws into something better and
even help us find good or do good in the midst of the chaos we
create, when we repent and turn to Him. Sometimes the craftsmanship
is so fine that we might mistake our flaws for virtues or even our
sins for things there were somehow "meant to be."
On
my mission, there was an outstanding elder who broke a bone while
playing basketball. Our mission had a specific rule against
basketball, probably because there had been so many injuries like the
one that put this enthusiastic elder in the hospital for a number of
weeks.
While
there, though, he didn't cease from sharing the Gospel, and gave some
copies of the Book of Mormon to the staff, including one nurse who
seemed interested in the message.
Later,
in a testimony meeting, that Elder shared his belief that his whole
experience there in the hospital might have been divinely arranged in
order to reach that nurse and maybe some others. I can understand the
feeling, and in a sense, he's right — but had he kept the
mission rules a little more strictly, he would not have had that
injury.
So
was it God's will that he break a mission rule in order to reach the
nurse? That might not be the right way to look at his situation.
Rather, wherever we end up, there is always good to be done, and as
we seek the Lord, the experiences, even our failures, will seem
tailored and meaningful.
Just
don't confuse a good tailor for a great physique. God is a master
tailor and can craft things to fit us perfectly, even when we are in
pretty bad shape.
Frankly,
we are all off course, somewhere other than where we would have been
had we lived perfect lives. Yet wherever we are, the Gospel tends to
help us experience miracles, blessings, comfort, and meaning that
makes it seems like this error-ridden path was designed and tailored
for us, even intended for us all along.
Alma
the Younger's story would have been much different and perhaps much
less interesting and less helpful to us today had he not been a
rebel. The good that he was able to do after repenting does not
justify the harm he did before, and surely as a mature prophet he
wished that he had never departed from God in the first place, but we
can praise God that such a flawed rebel was able to become such a
powerful tool for good.
Do
not doubt the good that God can do with you now and the mess you may
have already created in your life. Follow Alma's example and do all
you can to let God guide you with His hand, and you will find beauty
and surprise in the end.
We
must repent and move forward with hope rather than beat ourselves up
over the permanent departure from the imaginary state of what would
have been ideal.
The
unwed mother, the divorced couple, the missionary sent home for some
foolish error, the driver whose mistake creates tragedy — all
these may be painful departures from the ideal, and yet the Lord can
be there for each of these parties and bring them through the pain to
find new meaning and blessings that are uniquely crafted for who and
where they are.
I
think there is a better way to understand what happened to the
missionary brought down by basketball and what happens to all of us
when we fall in some way but seek God's guidance. It's not that all
our departures from God's paths were actually secret shortcuts that
we were destined to follow according to God's will.
Rather,
God's hand guides us to experience growth, do good, and find paths
forward no matter what ditch we've driven into, no matter how deep in
the mud of some no-man's land we managed to wander into. Like the GPS
that continually revises the suggested route after our errors in
driving, God keeps working with us to bring us forward, if we'll
accept guidance from His hand.
The
journey we take and the destinations we encounter may be much
different that they might have been, but He is there to guide again
and again and again, and along the way, we will have miracles. As we
work our way back to the main road, there may be stragglers we can
use a lift.
Miracles,
love, service, healing — these things never cease if we are
willing to let God work with us. Yes, they may be designed and
tailored for us, allowing us to be in the right place at the right
time, even after we've wandered leagues from where we were really
"supposed" to be all along.
In
one sense, to recognize the hand of the Lord in all things (Doctrine
& Covenants 59:21) might be to see that His hand is always there
in our lives, pointing, beckoning, holding, helping, pulling,
lifting, blessing, and crafting beauty out of the flawed raw material
that we are. When we see the beauty and the good that come from such
flaws, let us not admire the flaws, but the Craftsman.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.