Wrought

This is a picture of a bowl my husband and I bought at a pottery shop in the Smoky Mountain craft community. It was handmade by a Native American Indian. He uses red Tennessee clay and crushed Tennessee limestone to make his beautiful pieces. The simple lines and rich colors are, in my opinion, absolutely beautiful.

I love handmade things. I love the time, effort, and creative spirit that are infused in them. I have handmade gifts that I have treasured for more than 40 years.

This particular pottery piece is especially intriguing to me because it bears the unique signature of its maker. Do you see it? Look at the picture again and see if you can see it . . .

See the fingerprints? There near the bottom of the bowl’s right inside curve? I love that. The fingerprint of the maker stamped upon the creation.

I think that’s why I love nature so much. The starry canopy of Kirkhaven’s nighttime sky. The bare, winter limbs of an ancient oak tree beside my bass pond. The tiny seedlings quietly growing in my greenhouse nursery. I see the Lord’s fingerprints in all of these things. And I am continually intrigued by the story and the testimony this Fingerprint speaks.

I also think that’s why I sense such deep gratitude for the people God has brought into my life. Faithful family members who love me through every circumstance and in every season. Generous, compassionate friends who have spent years ministering the Lord’s Truth and Kindness to my heart. I experience my Lord in their words. Their arms. Their steadfast presence. God’s testimony of the power of His Son is astounding when I think of the love they have given to me.

But I feel no compunction to bragg about my home or my testimony or my family or my life circumstances.  Because the Fingerprint of the Maker completely eclipses every gift He has given. I will be eternally grateful for His mercy and grace. I will never be able to repay Him for His great love and generosity. But in all of it I see the Fingerprint of God.  For me . . . more and more . . . it is all about the Giver, not the gifts.

Everything within me explodes in praise and adoration for the One who is crafting my life.  That is where you can find me as I celebrate my 52nd year on this earth. I am in utter awe at the Fingerprint of God.

He is the Giver of all Blessing.
He is the Rescuer in every tragedy.
He is the Sustainer through every trial.
He is my philosophy.
He is my theology.
He is my reward.
And He is my inspiration.

All that I have is gloriously His.
Every person in my life . . . those who hate me and those who love me . . . those who respect me and those who pity me . . . are precious gifts in my quest to follow Him and to become more like Him.

In these autumn years of my earthly sojourn,
it is my deepest prayer and my greatest passion
that every eye . . .
my eyes and the eyes of all who observe life's happinesses and sorrows . . .
will be riveted
to neither any earthly vessel
nor any heavenly blessing,
but to the Potter Himself.

I pray that the Light of Truth will strike my fragile form in such a way that the miraculous, eternal Fingerprints of the Lord of the Universe will be visible.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:11-13

There is so much I do not know.
I am so very fragile and earthy.

But this one thing is the sum of all my knowledge
and the goal of my every righteous pursuit
and the object of all my praise:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1:1-5, 9-13

"For God so loved the world,that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."
John 3:16-21

To be wrought
in God,
and by God,
is the real treasure indeed.