I'll be honest with you: this has been a hard week for me.

I'm not ready to say more than that yet, and I've learned (I'm learning) that "I'm not ready" can be a complete sentence. But I wanted to name it, because I believe authenticity is important, and I don't want a world where we can't say that we struggle. Sometimes the most pastoral thing I can offer is simply the truth that I, too, struggle.

The text that has been holding me this week is from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians:

"But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us." (2 Corinthians 4:7, NRSVUE)

Clay jars.

In the ancient world, clay jars were everywhere and unremarkable, the kind of vessel you'd use to carry water, grain, oil. They were serviceable and ordinary. Breakable. Definitely not the type of container you'd choose for something precious. And yet, that's exactly the image Paul reaches for when he tries to describe what it's like to carry the sacred: clay. The stuff of the earth. Stuff that cracks. I like to think of something precious and studded with gems of great value and beauty, but that doesn't really fit, does it? Clay jars are formed from what God created, as are we. And like us, clay jars can crack open.

I've been thinking about what it means that the treasure and the fragility are both true at the same time, and that fragility is not a problem to be overcome before the treasure can shine through. God never asks us to get ourselves together to work in and through us. Actually, a five-minute read through the Bible reveals that the opposite is true. Divine love moves through ordinary, breakable human life, not around it.

I don't believe God is a distant, controlling force who directs events from outside, I believe God is an intimate presence woven into the fabric of every moment — and who feels what we feel, who suffers when we suffer, who is always and persistently offering us the best possibility of healing, of meaning, and connection, even when we can barely lift our heads. That's not a God who demands we be strong. That's a God who meets us within and despite the cracks.

I think you know what clay jar days feel like, Reader.

Maybe you're carrying grief that doesn't have a clean timeline. Maybe anxiety has been louder than usual this week. Maybe you're exhausted in that particular way that sleep doesn't fix, when you've held too much for too long. Maybe something happened that you're not ready to name either, and you showed up anyway: to work, to your family, to your community, for yourself. That showing up is faith in action. That is the treasure moving through and beyond the jar that was never meant to safely seal it up to begin with.

There's a tendency, and I feel it in myself, to believe that we need to be the un-cracked and whole version of ourselves before we deserve care, community, or rest.
Before we reach out.
Before we admit that something is hard.
But I don't think that's how love works, human or divine.
I think love is most visible precisely at the fracture lines.

So if you're having a clay jar day — or a clay jar week, or a clay jar season — I want you to know: you are in good company. You are not "disqualified." The treasure you carry has not leaked out and drained away. We have a community of people around us so we don't have to pretend otherwise.

If your clay jars are in bad shape and you'd like to talk, my door is open. And if you just need someone to know without having to explain, that's okay too. You can simply reply to this email with the words clay jar day, and I will hold that with you. That's the fiLLLed life.

Live a fiLLLed life, Melissa