Chipped Jars

It has been rainy the last couple days so it seemed like a good time to start organizing the pantry. I have been lax on doing that during the produce picking and canning frenzy that is typical of this season.

I discovered this was becoming an urgent matter when I went to put away some of the jars of salsa and tomato juice that I had canned yesterday. My shelves were a disorganized grouping of empty jars mixed in with filled jars and there wasn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to jar placement. I totally needed to do some organizing so I would have room for more filled jars.

I decided this would also be a good time to set aside the jars of produce that will go to the kids. (Ulterior motive was that it would free up more shelf space for the rest of the stuff  needing to be canned and preserved.)

As I moved things around and moved empty jars to more accessible locations; I thought I should probably check the rims on those empty jars. Some of the jars are pretty old as they came from my grandma, mom and mother in law……heirloom jars?  Some of those jars are even the old blue ones!

During the years of canning they eventually tend to chip on the edges and need to be weeded out. I might have to take a look at Pinterest to see what I can do with the slightly chipped jars in my possession. I am open to any crafting suggestions!!

I hate it when I find those chipped jars by the method of them not sealing. That always seems like such a waste of a good lid……so today I thought I would get a jump on the rest of the canning season.

Some of those chips were pretty hard to find and the only way to discover them was to run my index finger around the rim. It seems my fingertips are better at finding chips than my eyesight…..my age is showing????

The chipped jars got me to thinking. Sometimes we, as people, are chipped jars. Some of our chips are big enough that others can easily see them. Other chips need the gentle finger of the Master to find.

Sometimes it is hard to even realize that something in life has put a little chip in our life. We cannot understand why it happened or sometimes even how it happened……all we know is that it did happen and we are left wondering what to do with a life that now looks different than we thought it should.

My brain then journeyed on to the thought that when someone has a chip, large or small, as a fellow human we should treat them gently. It also got me to thinking that the Master is the authority on repurposing and using our chipped lives for something different than what we thought they would be.

I never did totally get these thoughts untangled as I worked in my pantry. I have a feeling that this is a concept I will have to ponder on a while longer. Maybe a long while longer.

 

I am hoping that while I ponder chipped lives – mine and others – I treat those around me with a gentleness that eases the pain of being chipped.  I hope I spread the thought that a repurposed life is a life of living, not just surviving, and a life filled with great hope…..a life of second chances to be lived differently than we had initially planned, but equally useful and beautiful….if we are willing to be repurposed.

 

 

 

“[When it comes to God]
We can’t run out of second chances…
only time.”
― Robin Jones Gunn