Making Memories

Devotional for Sunday, January 9, 2005 by John Stuart

In my study at home, on top of a shelf, is an aquamarine painted pot that contains loose change, paper clips, and pins. Anyone looking at it would call it ugly and worthless. When I see it, I think that it's precious and priceless. Why does it mean so much to me?

I made it at Montreat, North Carolina, at the college camp that our church youth go to each year. I made it with my daughters during the first week I ever visited the college. I'd never made a glazed clay pot before, so I delighted in the whole process. What I didn't realize then was that I was also creating cherished memories that would attach themselves to the pot.

Montreat has been a wonderful experience for my daughters and me. Our faith has always been enhanced and refreshed, renewed and deepened each year we go. In my mind's eye, I see all the youth who went there, summer after summer, to be drawn closer to God, to be given seeds of faith, and to be fully accepted by Jesus. That silly, ugly pot reconnects me with the past, strengthens my present family ties, and gives me a future hope that all those young people who went Montreat over many years will one day return to God to be reshaped, remoulded, and renewed.

Today, we are all precious in His sight and can be made new. All we have to do is to allow the Potter to hold us in His loving, caring, and creative hands.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, You created us from dust, and You reshape us every day. You change us into precious people and help us to become the blessed beings that You purposefully hoped that we would be. We place our lives into Your hands and humbly ask that You would reshape our ways and renew our faith. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

John Stuart <traqair@aol.com>
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

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