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by Elfrieda Nikkel
Anne was a special person in my life.
I first met her when I asked her to teach clay modeling to
our group of campers at a summer Bible camp.
She told me about how she loved her work with clay and how
she had just recently purchased a kiln to bake her clay creations.
When I asked her how she got started in her work of clay
modeling she told me her story.
Her son, who was born mentally challenged due to brain
damage at birth, had passed away at the age of 15, several months before I met
her.
She told me how working with the clay had helped her to
get through those difficult days of caring for him during those
years.
While working with the clay God had been at work molding
her life and now, I was seeing the beauty created by God the master potter.
I was delighted when Anne consented to come several times
during the camp session to teach the campers the art of clay modeling.
On her first day she gave each camper a lump of soft gray
colored clay and after a few instructions let them mold their little clay
vessels.
At the end of the craft session we had an assortment of
vases, pots and dishes of various shapes and sizes.
Anne instructed me to put them in a warm, dry place until
she would return for the next lesson.
I chose what I thought would be a good place and then in
the busyness of my daily schedule forgot about them until the day of her
return.
A few hours before the time of her next craft session I
checked my collection of clay pots.
To my dismay they were anything but beautiful – almost
without exception each one had a crack.
I quickly concluded I had chosen the wrong place to store
them, so when she returned, I apologized for what, to me, seemed like a
disaster zone.
To my surprise, Anne quietly said, “Oh, that’s
okay we can easily repair them,”
Then mixing up her clay she began to repair each
one.
As she worked, she said, “You know, this is just
the way God works with each one of us. We too, often find ourselves
cracked and broken and God, the master potter, fills the cracks and makes us
beautiful. We are never too broken that he cannot repair and fill the
broken areas in our life.”
In the Bible we read about God sending Jeremiah to visit
the potter’s house (Jeremiah 18:1-6).
As Jeremiah watches the potter God says that the people of
Israel are like clay in his hands that he wants to shape them as he sees
best.
In 2 Corinthians 4:7 people are also referred to as jars
of clay in which God’s glory dwells.
God holds us in his hand and molds us through the
different experiences in life.
Sometime he makes little changes and other times he fills
the cracks and closes them up.
Or maybe sometimes the cracks remain so that the glory of
his presence within us can shine out through those very cracks for others to
see.
The difficulties of life which to us may seem to be unfair
and meaningless may well be opportunities for God, the master potter to make us
into a vessel of honor and blessing.
Thinking about how God mends our brokenness, I had to think
of Peter in the Bible when he denied Jesus before his crucifixion and said he
didn’t even know him.
It says he wept bitterly, when he realized how he had
failed the Lord.
He must have felt that his relationship with the Lord was
over.
Peter experienced total brokenness. But then Jesus
meets him again at the breakfast on the seashore after his resurrection (John 21).
In his gentle and loving way, he calls Peter back and
touches his brokenness, giving him a new assignment to feed his sheep.
We know that Peter then became a person of influence, and
blessing to the early church as well as to Christians throughout the
ages.
God had repaired his brokenness and made him a clay vessel
that brought glory to God.
As we travel the journey of life God
gives us the choice to become clay in his hands.
We can come with our cracks and brokenness and he will
make something beautiful out of our life.
Even when we have made a mess of things, maybe by making
wrong choices, God can repair and bring healing so we will display his
glory.
How encouraging to think that with God we are never too
spoiled, too cracked, too broken.
With him there is always hope.
With him there is always another chance.
Will you meet me at the Potter’s House?
You can meet God right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your
heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of
your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:
Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally.
Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you
and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank
you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Mold me into the kind of
person you want me to be.
Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can
pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He
promised begin His work of molding and making you into a vessel of honor and
blessing.
If you invited Christ into your life, thank God often that
He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal
life.
As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much
He loves you, you’ll experience life to the fullest.
The Mission of Thoughts
About God is to help people know and grow in their relationship with
God.
We recognize that every person
is at a different place in their spiritual journey–our prayer is that the
content on this website, our mentors and our prayer partners will help you have
a closer walk with God. The quote by Blaise Pascal states
what we also believe.
“There is a God shaped vacuum
in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but
only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” Blaise Pascal
~ Marvin and Katherine Kehler
Founders of Thoughts about God.com
Founders of Thoughts about God.com
https://thoughts-about-god.com/struggles_/elfrieda-nikkels-broken-but-made-beautiful
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