The Tea-cup

There was a couple who used to go England to shop in the beautiful store. This was their 25th wedding anniversary. They both liked antiques and pottery and especially tea-cups. They said, “May we see that? We’ve never seen one quite so beautiful.”

As the lady handed it to them,suddenly the tea-cup spoke, “You don’t understand.” It said, “I have not always been a tea-cup.There was a time when I was red clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, “Let me alone,” but he only smiled, “Not yet!!”

“Then I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. ‘Stop it !! I’m getting dizzy!’ I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, ‘Not yet.’

Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook hid head, ‘Not yet’.

“Finally, the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. And he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. ‘Stop it, Stop it!!’ I cried. He only nodded, ‘Not yet!’.

Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf.

An hour later he handed me a mirror and said ‘Look at yourself.’ And I did. I said, ‘That’s not me; that couldn’t be me. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.’

“I want you to remember, then,’ he said, ‘I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I just had left you alone, you’d have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurts and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life, and if I hadn’t put you back in that second oven, you wouldn’t survive for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.”

God knows what He’s doing [ for all of us ]. He is the potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us, so that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will.

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