Dear Daughters,
After I watched Charlene spin her projects on the potter’s wheel several weeks ago, I was reminded of a simple story I received via email a few years back. A dear friend sent it to me when I was at one of the lowest physical and emotional times of my life. It arrived shortly after I had to quit my teaching job mid-year because of illness and I was at home day after day, lying on the couch alone most of the time and lamenting my lot in life.
The questions raged in my head: Why wasn’t God healing me so I could teach? Didn’t He care about me anymore? Had He forgotten that I still existed, hanging by a thread? The verse `God grants sweet sleep to those He loves’ mocked me day after day as I was haunted with doubts and nights with little sleep. I had so many questions, but all I heard from God was silence.
The story from my friend goes like this:
There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in the beautiful antique stores. They both liked antiques and pottery and especially teacups. Spotting an exceptional cup they asked, “May we see that, we’ve never before seen a cup quite so beautiful.” As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke:
You don’t understand. I have not always been a teacup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay.
My master took me and rolled me, pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, `Don’t do that, I don’t like it, let me alone.’ But he only smiled and gently said, `Not yet.’
Then WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. `Stop it, I’m getting so dizzy. I’m going to be sick,’ I screamed. But the master only nodded and said quietly, `Not yet.’
He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself, and then…..and then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. `Help! Get me out of here!’ I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side. `Not yet.’
When I thought I couldn’t bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good. `Ah, this is much better,’ I thought. But, after I cooled he picked me up and brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible, I thought I would gag. `Oh please, stop it, stop it!’ I cried. He only shook his head and said, `Not yet.’
Then suddenly he put me back into the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I knew I would just suffocate. I begged, I pleaded, I screamed. I cried. I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering `What’s he going to do to me next?’ An hour later he handed me a mirror and said, `Look at yourself.’ And I did. I said, `That’s not me; that couldn’t be me. It’s beautiful, I’m beautiful!’
Quietly he spoke, `I want you to remember.’ Then he said, `I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you’d have dried up.
I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn’t put you back in that second oven you wouldn’t have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.’
Somehow that little story brought me peace. I could maybe, possibly, believe that things would not always be this hard, life would get better. 
I love to read stories, funny stories, fantasy stories, sad stories, real life stories. The Color of Grace by Bethany Williams is a real life story I read recently about the brokenness, agony and depression she survived after a painful divorce. After years of therapy, healing, and counseling, Bethany has become the founder of Exile International, a ministry devoted to former child soldiers and children orphaned by war in Africa.
The stories of these children are brutal, beyond my comprehension – rape, witnessing their families being murdered, sometimes being forced to do the dastardly deeds themselves. But the hope, the joy in eyes that were once dark with hopelessness, the dancing and laughter that is the result of new life they have received from Jesus Christ, is simply astounding. There is no longer bitterness or darkness. No blaming God for their lives of horror. In Bethany’s words;
…in witnessing their [the children’s] strength, I realized in our American quest for comfort, our resilience muscle has been weakened. In our desire to have things “quick and easy,” we have atrophied our ability to thrive and survive. So we now have quick, and we now have easy, but we have less strength to cope with life when it becomes difficult.
In our quest for comfort, we have weakened our ability to be uncomfortable. Funny how we think we are the strong ones. I have found the strong ones. I am surrounded by them. 
My pain is real pain, your pain is real pain. But there is a certain beauty that comes from sitting close to and parking with our pain. When we run from it we fail to see what God is working through it. But if we embrace it, knowing that God is walking with us it can become a beautiful thing.
Every one of us has pain, whether it be a broken relationship, a broken body or a feeble mind, secrets we keep out of fear, grief over death. Whatever it is, know that your Heavenly Father catches your tears, weeps with you. He will not remove all pain, but he has promised to walk with us giving us his peace.
There are many days I would love to have physical healing, I have prayed for it for years. My dream is to be able to walk a mile. Apparently God has something better in mind for now, maybe to show His strength in my weakness. Whatever the case, I will trust Him to do what He deems best. I encourage you to trust Him with your pain as well.
Love, Mom
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