LEARNING AT THE POTTER'S WHEEL

Today had the potential to be a lousy day. I woke up very tired. My system has been fighting a cold being passed around by my little one. My Dearest Duke, was up and in a whirl of activity long before I was able to compose myself and greet the family. While I dressed and fought feelings of guilt, he had already fed them breakfast, made the coffee and cleared the dishes.

Duke is the best husband in the whole world. My children are my joy. Yet, the multitude of tasks and caretaking chores that fill each 24 hours sometimes seem to define me in their eyes. I become the person that does __________ for them. Rather than a person that enjoys ________ or loves _______ or thinks ________. I feel as though I have become the person that meets a need and performs a function.

Of course, I was underestimating my dear family. My depleted physical condition was affecting my emotions. When I got to the living room, I saw something precious. Duke had moved my rocking chair.

Let me explain.

My rocking chair was a gift from Duke. When our oldest was young, I made do by learning how to hold a little one and rock my body as I sang lullabies. Duke made sure that I had a rocker for the younger ones. However, Duke also loves overstuffed, large pieces of furniture. This meant that my rocking chair sat near the fireplace, in the walkway, where passersby tripped over my feet or bumped the chair as they opened the door to the backyard. It didn’t really bother me. It was just the only place left for my chair. I would sit on one side of the room, while everyone else sprawled on the other side.

When I got up this morning, Duke had moved his GIANT recliner to the opposite side of the room. He had banished one of the clunky pieces of furniture to the dump and the recliner found its new home in its place. This freed up floor space so that my rocking chair now sits right between two other pieces of furniture. It’s like I’ve been allowed to come out of time out.

It got me to thinking.

As much as my precious family loves and cares for me, there is Someone Who cares about me in unfathomable ways and knows me more intimately. Looking at my chair in its new home, thinking about how much it means to sit WITH my family rather than across from them, HIS words came to me:

Let not your heart be troubled:
ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many mansions:
if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again, and receive you unto myself;
that where I am, there ye may be also.
John 14:1-3

Imagine a place that has been made for you by Someone who KNOWS all of the secrets of your heart. Even better. Imagine a place made for you by Someone who MADE you and KNOWS what will be the perfect fit.

We have a way of exposing ourselves to things for which we were never created. But, there is a place made for me by my Creator that is full of all the things I was designed to enjoy and use and touch and . . .

I will be sheltered, fed, clothed, furnished by PERFECTION. The ONE who made me will offer me things which are so me, it just wouldn’t fit anyone else. I believe that in the enjoyment of those things He has prepared, He will be glorified, because no one else could have prepared something so perfectly suited for me. In fact, I think that the things He has prepared are so perfectly suited that if you were to enter the place prepared for me, you’d likely find it nice, but not so enjoyable.

Here, I enjoy my rocking chair. It is mine, but it is a mass-produced rocker. It looks like many, many others made at the same time. In the place HE has prepared, I don’t think anything is mass-produced. There are no duplicates. Just look at each of us. Within the boundaries of the human race are limitless characteristics that make each of us unique. If there are scissors in heaven, I imagine that each tool is so intricately crafted that it will only become a tool of perfection in one hand, the hand for which it was created.

Now, read those words again:

I go to prepare a place for you.

We aren’t talking about some luxury resort with several custom rooms and extravagant amenities. He means something much more intimate.

Just as Duke instinctively knew that I’d love to sit near his chair and relax near the children and look at the fireplace warming the room, God knows a few things about my heart. He knows my tastes. He knows the things that stir me to tears, laughter or rejoicing. He knows what things will inspire me to my greatest achievements. He knows what would be a nagging annoyance. He knows what would bless me in ways I’ve never even imagined. He KNOWS.

And HE has prepared a place for ME!

You’ll just HAVE to see it!