misshapen cup

Sometimes God grants me extraordinary graces. Well maybe He does it all the time and I just miss them. Today I noticed.

I am home alone today—a rare event for me these days—and I was listening to Brother Andre’s series on Mental Prayer. In it he was reading from Dom Eugene Boylan’s Difficulties in Mental Prayer which got me thinking deeply about my utter dependence on God, even for my own ability to pray to Him. What? I can’t even worship Him, love Him, tell Him I love Him without His help? No, no and no. I do know this. On a certain level, but in another way, how often do I really let that thought settle in, take hold of me and permeate everything I do, think and feel?

I saw myself—maybe for the first time, certainly for the first time in a long time—for what I am, a piece of clay, a lump of mud, a pile of dust. And yet God loves me?

The clay analogy made me think of my daughter who is taking a clay art class this semester in school. She recently gave me one of her rejected items, a cup. She was going to throw it away. She gives her nice pieces as gifts or keeps them herself, but this poor, misshapen cup she was going to toss. I rescued it from oblivion. After all, she made it. Its value lay in its creator, not in the creation itself—which brings me full circle back to my own soul.

My value lies not in the odd look my soul manifests due my own sinful nature, but in the fact that my Creator made me and KEPT ME! He didn’t choose to throw me away, though He certainly could have and based on the mess I’ve made of my cup (at times) He probably should have!

Instead, He keeps me and keeps on investing graces in me, whenever I ask ... and many times even when I forget to ask.

Today Lord, if possible, rewet and rework the original clay into something better. And yet, if it is for Your Greater Glory that I continue to be a misshapen cup, let me serve you as I am.