“O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay and you are the Potter. We are all formed by your hand”
For many years I felt that in making me God had got stuck on the kneading and moulding stage or had forgotten me in the oven. I also felt that during the process of making me He became distracted and that was why I was far from perfect. I never seemed to be able to grow to my full potential. There was always a nagging feeling inside me that something was missing and a lot of the time I did not feel that my life had much worth or value. There were so many times when I felt such deep hurt and loneliness in my life that I was sure He had forgotten me in the oven and I was damaged beyond repair.
I longed to make a difference in the world. To be able to touch other people’s lives and bring comfort and healing to them but always felt I was not worthy. Then one day I realised I would never be able to do any of these things if I was constantly in the process of being made. How could I offer anything of value to anyone else if I did not feel I was worthy and complete myself?
I decided to trust God and believe I was completed and that I could start pouring out His love to those around me. It was great and the feeling lasted about two days and then I did something I knew was wrong. I had a picture of me, the jug, being knocked off the table where I had been placed and landing on the floor. My handle broke off and a few cracks appeared on my body. I mentioned to a friend that I had thought I was past the clay stage and had become a beautiful jug but now felt that the jug was broken and I was back on the potter’s wheel. She wrote me a brief note: ‘Maybe God is just super-gluing your handle on to Himself and His love.’
I could then visualise Jesus kneeling down and tenderly picking me, the jug, and my handle up and gluing it together again with His love. As He ran His hands over my body the cracks disappeared and I was whole again. It is a known fact that once something has been super-glued it will rarely break in the same place again. Psalm 145:14 says: ‘The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.’
Often all we can see are the imperfections, the bumps, the cracks and the areas where we have been super-glued together. God in His love is continually healing us and mending us so we will not leak when He fills us up. A person dying of thirst who comes across a jug holding pure water couldn’t care less what that jug has gone through or what it looks like because it holds life-giving water.
God says in Joel: ‘…I will pour out my Spirit on all people.’ In Romans it says: ‘…God has poured out His love into our hearts.’ We, in turn, need to start pouring this love out to others. We need to take the time to be filled up. This is done when we spend time in prayer and reading the Bible, by worshiping God in song or by just sitting and watching a beautiful sunset knowing that He has created this world for our enjoyment. Once we are filled we need to pour out these blessings into other people’s lives. We have to move and share ourselves with others otherwise the blessings inside us become stagnant.
A potter’s mark is a device used to identify pottery wares. On an ancient Greek vase the following mark was found: ‘Exekias made and painted me’. Exekias was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter. Isn’t that such a beautiful image. When I die I want my tombstone inscription to read ‘God made and painted me!’
Ephesians 2:10: ‘For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’
Extract from All God’s Stones
UNDER A JUNIPER TREE 