Clay in the Potter's hands!

Good morning! My name is Charlotte and I am writing to help us give our first thoughts to the Lord.

This week has gone quite different from what I thought at the start. There has been a lot going on in my life, but above all I want this writing to be something that if you have a need from God, you can come to this site and be ministered to. There are many times in my life, I know, when if I could just get a word to encourage me, it would be worth everything. My desire is that this site will be God breathed and the little things in it will minister to your heart and your need.

Today is Friday!!!!! Does that do anything for you?????????

It doesn't for me as this is my Monday. I am off on Wednesday and Thursday.

Hopefully, we have been sharing this week lessons learned and passed down from older, experienced Christians to younger Christians. I remember when I was a young Christian how I struggled.

My mother used to say this poem about Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is loving and giving, Thursday's child works hard for a living, Friday's child is full of woe, Saturday's child has far to go, but the child that is born on the Sabbath day is something about the most wonderful of all.

Well, I was born on Saturday and according to my mother's little saying I have far to go - well, that is the story of my life. Outside of God, I have always been stubborn and pig headed about everything I have had to learn to become an adult. There was a time in my life that I would not listen to any one. I would not change for any one. THEN I MET THE LORD.

The wonderful thing about knowing the Lord is that He knows you better than you know you.....and He loves you unconditionally.....just like you are. You can know and feel His love and acceptance of you on the inside of your heart. Isn't that amazing?

I remember the absolute turning point in my life. I had a friend named Toby. We got saved about the same time and went to the same church. He was divorced, I was divorced. We were great friends. Then God sent Rose into Toby's life. They moved to Texas and when they came back, they were obviously very happy and had a couple of kids by then. I remember I got so envious of Toby and what God had done for him, I left church early and came home storming at God. "Now, God, why can't you do for me what you have done for Toby?"

The Lord spoke to me and this is what He said. "You are like a wild horse, but wild horses when they are saddled and bridled, make the best fillies."

Now, folks, I want you to understand that this came from the Creator of my soul, who knows me inside and out, upside and down, and who I loved with my whole heart.

The next day I got to thinking 'Oh, the Lord didn't say that to me' you know how that goes. Well, God gives a confirmation of his messages. Sure enough I was reading a book on inner healing by President Carter's sister and opened the book and in black and white, there before my eyes, was in print the exact thing that the Lord had spoken to me.

Looking back now I can see that that was so true of me. Delightful brought a movie over one time for me and the girls about a wild horse and as I watched that movie, I understood even more about how the Lord was directing me in my life. I can't tell you how many buckets of tears I shed. God can take us from where we are to where He wants us to be - to be all we can be in the person He has created us to be.

He didn't create us the same. I am not a housekeeper. I labor at house cleaning - always have and probably always will, however, you give me a song to sing or piece to play on the piano and I can stand with the best. I'm not you and you're not me, and the quicker we learn that, the quicker we can get on with our lives.

You see for a person such as myself that doesn't just naturally lay down and play dead, to submit to someone is a quality decision to be made rather than just a natural thing to do. It is a choice to be made to obey God or to go by what my husband says...rather than my wearing the pants in the family....or doing my own thing....the I DID IT MY WAY thing.

It all goes back to loving God with all your mind, heart, and soul....this is what comes first....loving God most of all especially above yourself. When we put God first in our life, He can mold us and make us into what He wants us to be.

Now I'm not saying I have arrived and this is how I got so perfect because I am not perfect by a long shot and I will be the first to tell you that. Paul says the things I know to do, I don't do, and the things I know not to do that is just what I do. That is me but in my heart of hearts, I want to please my Lord and at the same time, I want to please my husband.

There is song that I have sang for years that says this:

Wounded and broken I came back to Him,
A vessel so unworthy, so marred by my sin.
But He did not despair, He started over again,
And I praise the day, He didn't throw the clay away.

Over and over He molds me and makes me,
Into His image He fashions the clay.
A vessel of honor I am today,
All because Jesus didn't throw the clay away.

He is the Potter and I am the clay,
Molded in His image He wants me to stay.
So when I stumble and fall, and my vessel breaks,
He just picks up the pieces, He doesn't throw the clay away.

Over and over He molds me and makes me,
Into His image He fashions the clay.
A vessel of honor I am today,
All because Jesus didn't throw the clay away.

When I went to UCA, we went to the potter's room. Our teacher showed us how the potter works. You take a hunk of clay and you put it on the wheel. You add water to the clay and work the clay on the wheel. Sometimes there are hunks in the clay that will make your hands bleed, but you keep on adding water to the clay and keep on working it until you have all the impurities out and then after the impurities are out and the clay is moldable, only then, can you begin making something out of that hunk of clay.

Say for instance, that you make a plate out of the worked clay and it is not straight. Do you throw that clay away?????

Not by a long shot. You have work that clay for hours making it something you can do something with so you certainly would not throw it away.

Well, that is what God does for us. Jesus hand's bled first and foremost so that we could be the clay in the Potter's hand. Now when we mess up, God does not despair of us, He forgives...forgets....and starts over again knowing He can make us into the person He means for us to be.

I got my hair fixed yesterday. My beauty operator had gotten a new hair cut, style, and foiling of her hair. Beauty operators know hair so she and this other operator were talking about this little hunk of hair here needs some more work. Now to me it looked fine, but I am not a specialist.

You see, God sees our imperfections because He is a specialist's specialist. He knows just how to take that little out of kilter part of us and turn it around so that we can become all He has created us to be.

The rock sculptor says he does not make the rock into what he wants it be. He takes the shape that the rock is in already and simply chips away the part that doesn't belong so that the true shape of the rock can show forth.

God does not make us into someone else - He simply refines the person that we already are.....He made us in the beginning and He knows that He does not make junk.

Now stop what you are doing.........and tell the Lord you want to be moldable clay in His hands so that you can be all you be in Him...........just give him a moment of your day.......just let Him speak to your heart.

Have a great weekend!

Charlotte