A family went on a trip to England to buy something from a beautiful antique store to celebrate the 25th anniversary of marriage. And their wife and husband liked antiques and clay products, ceramic objects, especially tea cups.
They noticed an exceptional cup and asked, "Can we see that cup? I've never seen something so beautiful! "
While the lady offered them what they had asked for, the tea cup began to speak:
You can not understand. I was not a tea cup from the beginning. Sometime, I was just a red clay. The master took me and ran, beat me hard, repeatedly mumbled me, and I cried, "Do not do that!", "I do not like it!", "Leave me alone!" But He smiled just said gently: "Not yet!"
Then, ah! I was placed on a wheel and I was spinning, spinning, spinning. "Stop! Dizzy! I'm gonna be sorry! "I shouted. But the Master just nodded and said quietly: "Not yet." He turned me around, struggled and struck me and molded me until he got the shape that he had agreed upon, and then he put me in the oven.
I never felt so much heat! I cried, I beat and struck the door ... "Help! Get me out of here! "I could see him through an opening and read on His lips as he shook his head from one side to the other:" Not yet. " When I thought I could not resist another minute, the door opened. Carefully, he pulled me out and put me on the shelf ... I started to cool myself. Oh, I was so good! "Well, that's much better," I thought. But after I got cold, he took me, brushed me and colored me all over ... the smells were horrible. I thought I was choking. "Oh, please, stop, stop!" I shouted. He just nodded and said, "Not yet!"
Then suddenly he put me back in the oven. But now it was not the first time. It was twice as hot and I felt like choking. I asked him. I insisted. I screamed. I cried ... I was convinced I would not escape! I was ready to give up. At that time, the door opened, and He pulled me out and, again, sat down on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering, "What is he going to do?" .
An hour later he gave me a mirror and said, "Now look at you!" And I looked. "That is not me; that can not be me ... It's beautiful. I am beautiful!"
He spoke gently to me: "I want you to remember, I know it hurt when you were rolled, mumbled, kicked, rotated, but if I left you alone, you would have dried up. I know you got dizzy when I turned you on the wheel, but if I stopped, you would have broken your pieces, you would have broken up. I know it hurt and it was very hot and unpleasant in the oven, but I had to put you there, otherwise you would have cracked. I know the smells did not make you feel good when I brushed you and colored you all over, but if I had not done that, you would never have really endured. You would not have glowed in life. If I had not put you for the second time in the oven, you would not have survived too much, because that hardening would not hold. Now you're a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind the first time I started working with you. "
The moral is this: God knows what he does with each of us. He is the Potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us, make us, and expose us to the necessary pressures, to be perfect works to fulfill His good, pleasure and holy will.
If life seems heavy and you are hit, beaten and pushed almost mercilessly; when the world seems to be spinning uncontrollably; when you feel that you are in terrible suffering, when life seems terrible, make yourself a tea and drink it from the prettiest cup, sit down and think about the ones read here, and then talk a little about the Potter.
(Father Arsenie Boca)