Beauty from Puddles

“But who can endure…Who can stand…For he will be like a refiner’s fire…He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify…and refine them like gold and silver.  Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness…acceptable to the LORD” Malachi 3:2-4.

Bruce and I are presently in Texas visiting his brother and sister-in-law.  Yesterday, we went to a little German town which was peppered with antique shops, gift shops and a few shops of pottery.  As we were walking through the pottery shop the potter was in the back on the wheel creating and diligently working.  My eyes feel upon these beautiful tiny bowls with bursts of crackled colors in the center.  Turns out they are called melted marble pinch pots.  The process is fairly easy…if you are not the marble.  The first step is to choose a plain pottery pot and two marbles.  The marbles are placed in the center of the little pot, put in the 2400 degree kiln allowing the marbles to puddle in the middle of the pot.  Once the marbles are liquid, the bowl is removed and as the puddle cools down, it begins hardening and eventually forms crystalized colorful cracks.  Then an overall glaze is applied by the potter forming a beautiful little Pinch Pot.

Our potter is constantly bending over us designing and forming us … molding and creating us.  We are all given flesh bodies which are primarily similar. However, experiences in life that He allows or sends are like little colorful marbles being placed in the center of our hearts.  Life turns up the heat and puddles our emotions, melting away hopes and dreams.  Suffering turns our firm intellectual faith into an emotional mess wondering if we will ever feel the stability again.  But then time passes, the circumstances of our life cools down and beauty is formed out of puddles.  The Potter takes His healing and resurrecting hands, cups them around our lives and covers our hearts with the protecting seal of the Holy Spirit.  This seal forms a faith that endures…that can stand up under the heat of future firings. 

Before the heat, the marble did nothing but roll around with little function.  After the heat, the marble was infused into a beautiful little dish for which others could be served.