A precious lady from our church blessed the ladies of our fellowship with a special gift. For years, sweet Janice has collected teacups, and she decided to give them all away to her friends at church. Each of us filed by a table covered in lovely gift bags with our fragile treasures protected in dainty tissue paper with a lovely note to tell the story about the life of a teacup. The story itself was a treasure, so I’ll do my best to retell it here…
I started as a lump of clay, not anything outstanding or consequential, just a lump of clay, until an artist picked up the clay and placed it on a spinning wheel. I was so dizzy at times, not knowing which way to turn, but the artist seemed to know. As he turned the wheel, I began to grow and form. This difficult process confused me, but when the artist finished, I could see the use I would fulfill.
That, of course, was not the end of it. Next he placed me into an oven, and I felt at times I couldn’t breathe. What was this all about? Was there a reason for all this stress? Finally, he placed me on a drying shelf to rest. I felt the cool and thought, “He is finished; now I can breathe.”
The artist, however, had other plans. He painstakingly applied beautiful paints to my surface—all sorts of colors. At times, I felt overwhelmed by the colors that did not seem to match exactly, but he moved with such purpose, carefully selecting each hue. Surely he had a plan.
To my dismay, he placed me back into the oven, this time, even hotter. “Why?” I thought to myself, “Why me?”
The process seemed endless, but finally, the door opened, and he lifted me gently out of the oven, and with a smile full of pride, he placed me on a shelf and posed me perfectly near a mirror, where I could see myself. I had become a beautiful teacup. I thought to myself, “I started as a lump of clay, some would think of no value. Then through a nearly unbearable process, I became this beautiful, valuable teacup. My journey led through paths of discomfort and questioning why, but the artist knew the plan. He saw my value all along, and here I am today, a beautiful and valuable teacup.
Life truly bends us, stretches us, molds us, and sometimes burns us. We feel we can’t breathe under the weight of struggle. We lose loved ones, and face seemingly endless disappointments and failures. Our Artist knows our worth though, and He can’t wait to display us as trophies of His grace so that we can see the value in our pain.
…and that’s the view from My Front Porch
Please pray for our Jan. She has been struggling with congestive heart failure and recently had a scare that landed her in the hospital.