Next time I see a piece of handmade pottery, I will be much more appreciative.
I just read the step by step process needed to make a single piece. It takes time. Lots of time. Days and days. It takes work and creativity and patience. It requires being okay with getting really messy. It’s not a quick and easy project. You have to have a passion for it to put in what it takes to get it done. It’s definitely a labor of love.
As I was reading about this, I came across words like forming, wedging, multiple layers of firing, leatherhard, greenware. Every part of it, part of the process necessary for a finished product.
Some of these terms were familiar and some were new to me. Wedging, for instance, is the process of kneading out the clay to rid it of any air bubbles in it that would cause it to explode in the firing process. Leatherhard refers to the stage when the clay has been set aside for a time of slow drying to remove its water content before firing. It is semi-hard but still pliable enough to fine tune the carving or the addition of handles, etc. The best time for refining a piece to make it the exact shape you want.
It was fascinating for me to look at these details from the perspective of Jesus being the potter and me being the clay. God used this analogy when He talked to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 18:1-6 – This is the message that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Jeremiah, go down to the potter’s house. I will give you my message there.” So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working with clay at the wheel. He was making a pot from clay. But there was something wrong with the pot. So the potter used that clay to make another pot. With his hands he shaped the pot the way he wanted it to be. Then this message from the Lord came to me: “Family of Israel, you know that I can do the same thing with you. You are like the clay in the potter’s hands, and I am the potter.”
This analogy served as a warning to the nation of Israel to get their act together and turn their hearts back to God. But whether God is looking to change us or grow us or deepen our relationship with him, the principle remains the same. His hands on us, molding and shaping. Imagine that potter at the wheel. He starts with a lump of clay, which in Old Testament times was literally taken from the ground. God created mankind from that same material. He got His hands dirty on us from the very beginning, so He is not afraid to sit at the wheel and use His perfect, holy hands to work on us. Imagine those hands kneading, “wedging”, to get all the impurities and air bubbles out so that when we go through the firing process (the difficulties in life) we don’t explode, but are prepared to withstand the intense heat. Picture those hands lovingly creating and shaping something useful and beautiful and lasting. Carving at just the right “leatherhard” time . Adding. Taking away.
And then He places us in the kiln of refinement. The fire, so to speak. That place where “what doesn’t kill us actually DOES make us stronger.” Because He has readied us for just such a place, we can rest even there, knowing that His plan for beauty on the other side is well under way. And somehow recognizing that the firing process is not an oversight or punishment on His part, but a genuine act of love, brings peace in this most unlikely of places.
And when this long and difficult process is complete we look to find that we are no longer a lump of clay, but something of greater purpose and lovely. Ready to be filled with and used for whatever the Potter had in mind all along.
