In the Potter's Hands

IN THE POTTER’S HANDS

            I recently received the gift of a video of a potter.  He formed a vessel which then seemed to collapse into ruin.  He then took the ruined pot and formed an even more unique pot.  He then said that his real intention had been to create the second pot, that the first was no mistake, but part of the process.  He made a spiritual application, but I didn’t need his.

            For many years I have been intrigued by the verses in Jeremiah 18:

            This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:  “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.”  So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.  But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.  Then the word of the Lord came to me.  He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord.  “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.”

            Then in Romans 9:20-21,

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God  “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”  Does not the potter have to right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

 I have conceded that God the potter has the right to do whatever He thinks is best in shaping me, that He has a plan for me.  I remember the quote from the Bill Gothard seminar about forty years ago.  “Please be patient.  God is not finished with me yet.”  I could understand that as a twenty-something.   But I have recently been overwhelmed by the thought that I am still not a finished vessel, that I am still on the wheel.  Somehow I thought that when I got to be an (almost!) old woman, then He would be done with His shaping, that somehow I would have arrived at who I am supposed to be.  But I’m not!  As my aunt has emphasized to me about another situation, The story isn’t over!  I think perhaps this present shaping is more painful, yet hopefully more productive, than the earlier.  My story and the story of my children has not been the story I thought was being written.  I don’t know what the future holds.

George MacDonald, in his book The Diary of an Old Soul, wrote,

Thou art making me, I thank thee, Sire.

What thou hast done and doest thou knows’t well,

And I will help thee:  gently in thy fire

I will lie burning, on thy potter’s wheel

I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel.

Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell,

And growing strength perfect through weakness dire.

                                                              ~~Faith Himes Lamb

           

"Only One Mother"

I remember hearing my mom lament, “The world can be a lonely place without your mother in it.” Her mother—my grandmother—had been in heaven for years, and most of us had gotten back into our routines. But there are some people we don’t forget and never quit missing. 

On this week when we think of our mothers, I am so thankful for the wonderful women I have to remember and look up to still.  I am thankful for friends who help model good mothering for me and for a sister and others who help fill in the gap left by my mom’s passing nearly sixteen years ago.

The longer I live, the more days there are that bear special significance—some happy and some sad. Many people in our midst need special love and attention.  So it is with joy for the mother I had, gratefulness for my own children, and prayers for friends that I offer you this little poem that I remember from my own childhood.

Only One Mother
by George Cooper

Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky,
Hundreds of shells on the shore together,
Hundreds of birds that go singing by,
Hundreds of lambs in the sunny weather.

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.