to the Potter, the clay said...

"Why did you make me this way?"

Have you ever asked God this? I know I have, and I currently am. I'm dissatisfied with how He made me. He made me a sexual being, and I hate it. I am not the slimmest or trimmest girl and I hate it. I hate my curves and big hips. I think that my smile is ugly, my face is too fat, and I'm just plain ugly. I'm hideous.

This is what I think.

Have you ever taken a ceramics class? More specifically, have you ever thrown clay on a potter's wheel? I'm currently taking a class and I love it, but it has definitely been causing me to think about some things. This is one of them.

I was reading in Scripture and came upon Isaiah 45:9-10 "What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, 'Stop, you're doing it wrong!' Does the pot exclaim, 'How clumsy can you be?' How terrible it would be if a newborn baby said to its father, 'Why was I born?' or if it said to its mother, 'Why did you make me this way?'"

I thought of this in the context of me being the potter, rather than the clay. When I am forming something on the wheel, if I think it's beautiful, I'm going to let it dry and eventually fire it in the kiln. It doesn't matter to me whether or not others think it's beautiful. I created it and I think it's beautiful. If I didn't think it was beautiful, I would destroy it and start over.

When God was done making me, He looked at me and said that I was "good". Why can't I see that? If I wouldn't have been beautiful, He would have destroyed me and made something else. But He loved what He had created and in that moment decided to put me in the kiln. He saw what He had created and said it was beautiful.

So, why can't I accept that I am beautiful? I know I'm hurting Him by rejecting myself, but I just don't see the beauty. I see all of the imperfections. What if the clay said, "I don't understand why You made me this way, or what purpose I'll serve looking like this, but I trust you."?

Unfortunately, in our world, we get marred by words and events that happen to us. I've definitely been marred by both. So what happens? What is the object made to do when it has been marred by the things of this world? Is there any way to fix the cracks, dents, and chips? How does the potter fix it?

Or does He let those cracks, dents, and chips add to the beauty and uniqueness of the object made?