Do you have a piece of pottery in your home? I don't mean a dollar store coffee cup. I'm talking about a piece of pottery that is handmade by someone. I have a little bowl my oldest son made when he was in elementary school. I can see the size of his little fingers where he squished the bowl into shape. His initials are scratched on the bottom. He brought it home as a gift probably for Mother's Day. It may not be much to look at but it holds my paperclips on my desk. It does its job and to me it's priceless.
When he went off to college, he met a girl majoring in something far different than art but she took a pottery class as an elective. She is now a professional potter. Her work is amazing, very unlike the child-made bowl on my desk. Her work is unique. I can see the ridges her fingers made as she turned the pieces on her wheel. I asked her about the process of bringing her pottery to the finished product.
She explained clay doesn't need to cure, just dry, which could be between two days and two weeks before it is fired in the kiln. In the first firing called the bisque, the pottery is heated to 1800 degrees. After the pottery is glazed it goes through another firing at 2000 degrees. This firing takes between eight and nine hours. The pots shrink 10% in the firing. She sometimes fires a third time if something needs to be fixed. I'm thinking she means fixed as in the glaze.
She often names her pieces according to the way she glazed them. The mug shown here is a mountain view. It was a gift because she knew how much I love the mountains. The saucer under the mug is my favorite muffin plate. It was one of her first works. It's nothing like the saucers she makes now but I love it.
Have you ever turned a piece of pottery over and noticed it's not glazed on the bottom? There's a secret about the unglazed area. Regardless of the use of the pottery, the bottom can be used to sharpen knives. Just a little kitchen magic for you there.
Isaiah compares God to a potter. God fashions each of us with a unique job. We are all different in our appearance. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. Some of us may feel a little misshapen by the world's standards but like my son's little bowl, we are priceless in God's eyes. The Lord knows each of us by name and we are created with a special purpose.
The Lord's fashioning of our lives is not a hands-off process. He shapes us and molds us and often times puts us through the fire, maybe more than once. No one is too young or too old, too sinful or too messed up for God to make them into what He has planned them to be.
Ephesians 6 tells us to put on the whole armor of God. When we put on the armor the head and front are covered but the back is still open. Of course, God's got our back but I'm wondering if like the glazed pottery if our most vulnerable side is another part God will use.
A potter creates beautiful, useful works of art. How is God molding you into what he wants you to be?
Being molded in His image,
Gail
