Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

 

Before closing the dishwasher, I added an unfamiliar plastic glass. (I call anything I drink from a glass even if it’s made from plastic. I also call tissues, “Kleenex,” sodas are “Cokes,” and any brand of gelatin is “Jell-O.”)

The next day I used it. It was perfect. I could fill it with ice and still have room for a whole can of Coke (actually Diet Rite). When my granddaughter Adeline returned from school, I asked if she knew who had left it at the house.

“Victoria was here yesterday. It must be hers,” Adeline said. I made a mental note to return it to my daughter Victoria.

A couple of days later, I still hadn’t seen Victoria. I was using the glass when my daughter Lauren walked into the room.

“Why are you drinking out of my vase?” Lauren asked.

“It’s Victoria’s glass!” I said.

“It’s the vase I brought my coworker’s flowers in,” Lauren said. “She returned it to me, and I brought it home.”

It did make sense. The size and shape of the vessel I’d been drinking from could easily be a vase. By the time I discovered the original purpose, it had been through the dishwasher several times so did it really matter? I don’t think so, yet I haven’t been able to drink from it since.

What does really matter to me is if I’m a vessel God can use.

“Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work,” 2 Timothy 2:21.

May we all be used as instruments of God’s will.

 

Ronny Michel can be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com.