In the hands of the Potter

We lived in Germany for three years in the early eighties. It was the one and only overseas assignment that we were able to go together as a family.

One of the neat things about living in the military is that the people you meet and make friends with while on different assignments become your family. We learned early on in our time in the Air Force that every place we moved we needed to find a church and I needed friends. In Germany I met some friends through my husband’s job and it turned out that they were involved in the women’s ministry at the base chapel where I made more friends. One of those friends is Pam; we have been friends now for 27 years. I recently found two other ladies I met all those years ago, one through Facebook.

The Protestant Women of the Chapel or PWOC, is a program that helps women find Christian fellowship. During my time in Germany the PWOC kept me sane which allowed my husband to stay sane. This was before cell phones, home computers and the internet. Our only communication with family back home was letters and an occasional phone call.  It was expensive so we wrote down the important stuff we wanted to share when we talked to family in the United States and we kept it short.

One of the things the PWOC did was go on outings in our local area and on one of those outings we went to a potters shop. The potter showed us how he created his pottery, using the clay, the potter’s wheel and water. As I stood watching the process I remembered the verse from Isaiah 64:8.

"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.

We are the clay, you are the potter;

we are all the work of your hand."

In the hands of this craftsman a block of clay was molded and shaped using the water and the spinning motion of the potter’s wheel. If he didn’t like how something was turning out he could squish the clay back into a lump and start over. He would begin again to reshape and make it into what he wanted it to be. I remember at one point he was attaching the handle to the candle holder he was making and he didn’t like how it looked so he refashioned it and attached it again to the jar. The whole process was a visual lesson that I have never forgotten.

God is the Master Potter and I am the clay. Everything about my life is used by Him to mold me and make me into the vessel that He can use for His glory. Just as that day, the potter made a candle holder that is used to shine a light in a room; God uses my life to shine His light in a dark world. Sometimes the process of being molded and shaped isn’t fun; it can be painful depending on what I’m going through at any given time but while I’m going through it and when I come out on the other side, God’s purpose is to let people see Him shining through me.

I looked at my candle holder and couldn’t find any evidence of that potter’s finger prints; he had smoothed it with his sponge and water. But God the Master Potter has left His prints all over my life. At times I may not enjoy the process but I am clay in the Potters hands. The clay doesn’t tell the Potter how she wants to be formed.

Every time I look at my candle holder I’m reminded of that day in the potters shop, my friend Pam who has one just like mine, and God- the Master Craftsman and Potter. I am safe in His hands.  Click on the clip on Youtube below...it's one of my favorites.

Walking in love,




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