It's Saturday and I am so excited to be meeting my Aunt Dottie, cousin Susan, and daughter-in-law Brooke to paint pottery at a place called "All Fired Up".

We are meeting for brunch at "Panera" first and then...let the fun begin!!!

Well, we got to Panera and had a bite to eat and then went next door to the pottery place. I scanned the shelves of a couple hundred items to choose from
and decided that I would be making a baby gift for one of my customers.
I chose a cute piggy bank, Susan painted an "H" a gift for her niece, and Brooke chose a dish for her mother's birthday.
We spent one and a half hours talking and painting. What a great time we had.

As we were sitting there the thought occurred to me. That pottery reminded me of a passage of scripture in Isaiah 64:8; where the writer says "But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. "The work of His hand!"

I looked at all that pure white pottery, it was so clean and without spot.
Just as we are at the moment of our salvation. Our hearts are free of sin, stain, blemishes and pure white covered by the blood of Jesus. Untarnished by the sin of this world. But, as we go through our Christian lives, and sin creeps in, they become stained again, until we come before our Savior and repent and are restored.

As we began to put strokes of paint on the white pottery, I couldn't help but compare those to our pure white hearts. Each stroke representing something; whether good or evil that has become a part of our heart. Some of the strokes are allowed to be placed on our hearts by the Lord, others we allow to be painted on us by the world or through disobedience to the commands of our Father. When a mistake was made on the pottery, a lot of effort had to be made to repair it. The paint had to be cleaned of all the way down to the white piece of pottery and repainted properly. So many times in my heart I had to repent and ask the Lord to clean that spot on my heart down to the pure whiteness that I had at salvation and then restore it to it's original beauty.

Every decision we make along the road of our Christian lives puts a few more strokes on us. We can become a thing of beauty that points others to our potter, the one who made us. Or, if we do not choose carefully and according to God's commands, we will create of ourselves a vessel that brings dishonor to our Lord. I don't know about you, but I want my vessel to be a thing of beauty that points to my Savior.

As we sat there and looked at the finished pottery, we were all pleased. Today, we were the potters, the artist and the creators of something beautiful. I pray that my life and yours is a vessel that we have allowed our Savior the Lord, Jesus Christ to form, fashion, mold and paint strokes of beauty that point others to Him. A vessel that can be used for His honor and glory.