This weekend, we walked through our new house with a contractor–the fifth one we’ve brought in–and explained our vision for the master bath and kitchen. And for the fifth time, we heard a response that started off by pointing out everything that’s wrong with our vision.  This time, we even got a follow-up email that suggested a different vision, a 180-degree twisting of what we had asked for.  Not because what we had asked for was impossible or unreasonable, but because the contractor had a different idea of what to do with our space.  Funny, though, that she’s not the one paying for this project or the one who will live out her days and years in it.  Funny…

This remodeling venture and its for-the-birds nature has led to some pretty severe flashbacks; no, not from my time in ‘Nam, but to a period in my life that I call dental school.  I had no idea of what I was getting into when they called to tell me I was accepted as a member of the University of Alabama School of Dentistry Class of 2003.  All I knew was that in four years I would be called “Doctor” without having to go to medical school.  And that maybe I’d find a husband.  Cut to me sitting in a lab for the afternoon with a canister of blue wax, an open flame, and a pile of crap on a stick that was supposed to look like a molar.  Who the hell decided it was a good idea to let me in here? thought the girl who was used to being at the top of her class.  I would stand in line with the other students, poop in hand, and wait for my turn with the professor who would tell me everything that was wrong with my tooth.  Then, list of failures in hand, I would return to my seat for another round of Wax It Up.

I was beyond insecure already.  This method of learning did not help.

Flash-forward to present day, where I find myself engaging in a game called Find the Literary Agent: a self-imposed period of seeking and not finding, knocking and the door not yet being opened unto me.  Which is what they say happens to everyone who gets involved in this process, but everyone is not me and hearing no, however nicely it’s put, is never fun.  Even when it comes with compliments and versions of “It’s not you, it’s me” breakup lines.  But I’ll tell you one thing: the fact that there has been no weeping/gnashing of teeth/bad choices of men and drinks is a testament to the distance I’ve traveled in eleven years.  One thousand eight hundred fifty-three miles along U.S. highways; countless miles along roads of redemption.

There is an Indian folktale about a water bearer who traveled from the river to his master’s house daily, a rod held on the back of his neck with a pot suspended from either side.  One pot was perfectly whole; the other sported a serious crack. By the time these pots reached the house each day, the cracked one was only halfway full.  Broken Pot began to feel badly about himself (pots have feelings too) and expressed his sense of inadequacy to the water bearer, who responded by taking the pot on a tour of their daily path.  “Notice a difference between the two sides of the path?” he asked the pot, who noticed that Perfect Pot’s side was barren while his own side, having been provided with water from the crack, was blanketed with the same flowers that decorated the master’s table every day.

The greatest gift I’ve received from grace is knowing how loved I am, no matter what.  The second greatest gift I’ve received is knowing how broken I am, and that there’s nothing I can do to fix it.  In the face of such knowledge, all my attempts at covering up my flaws and pretending to be something I’m not become not only unnecessary but ridiculous.  And just like that, I am freed.  Freed to have a vision for our home that is waiting for the right contractor.  Freed to have a story to tell that is waiting for the right agent.  Like the $20-on-sale purse I bought two months ago whose handle just broke and is now bound with super glue, I am held most tightly in the spots where I have been broken–that is where the healing and stories happen; that is where the flowers grow.