Creating pottery is a process. I have always enjoyed working through the processes of learning various skills, and working with clay is no different. From mixing the clay, to wedging, to forming, to reworking, to burnishing, to drying, to firing, to glazing, and then firing again; each stage needs to happen in a specific order, with precision, to make the end product beautiful and useful.
While working with clay, we learned the process of wedging the clay. I would stand over the clay leaning my weight into this mass of clay; pressing and squeezing with my hands, over and over again. My spirit got pricked, there was a deeper lesson. The purpose of the process is to make a homogeneous mixture, to press out any air bubbles, to work out any stiffness or dry areas in the clay. Learning the importance of this process started to make the difficulties in life a little more understandable. This process, if done properly, prevents problems in working the clay later. Any stiffness or dry spots in the clay would make it unyielding under the hands of the potter, which could cause the whole pot to tear under the fingers of the potter as the wheel spun, or an unsightly lump in a hand built piece. The bubbles were the most dangerous. These could go undetected all through the process of forming the pot up until the first firing. As the pot is fired, the clay shrinks. Any bubbles in the clay would cause the pot to crack or burst into pieces as the clay shrank around the air pocket. So any laziness or lack proficiency in the beginning of the process could cause total destruction in the end! What’s more, some students had their work DAMAGED by others pots exploding in the kiln! Wow. I was starting to see how I am responsible to others in my own process, how our own carelessness can, and often do harm others.
During that time in high school, a very difficult chapter in my life began to unfold. The words that seemed to best describe what I was going through was, “God is wedging me” and yes, it hurt, it was uncomfortable. Ultimately, He was creating a heart that was yielding to him, without hardness and without bubbles so that I too could pass through the fire uncracked. While I knew this on a level, my heart was very confused as to why so much pain and confusion and disappointment was happening. It was during this time that I started to spiral down into the depths of a decade long grips of an eating disorder. No one could fully understand the depths of the darkness I experienced during that time. I dropped out of college 3 times, was hospitalized twice with numerous different therapists and treatments, but in the end I was still sick. I had a toolbox full of the tools of recovery that I desperately wanted, but found no freedom. For the better part of the decade I was a “functional bulimic” I held down a job and I fumbled through life, nearly resigned that I would always be that way. Then God healed me. Miraculously. In a way that no doctor, no method, no treatment could take credit. I knew it wasn’t my willpower because Lord knows I had tried with all my might! And even in those previous months of being binge free and purge free, I knew no freedom in my mind. I was still bound to the obsession, and I was merely controlling my symptoms. This time it was different, and I knew it. I was in awe.
I likened the bulimia to an addiction. It was a crutch, and it worked. I find it odd even now looking back and seeing the awareness I had then, yet that awareness was not able to save me or heal me. I knew then, that the eating disorder was a distraction to prevent me from seeing and feeling the reality that I was in that was too painful for me to face. The analogy came one evening while riding the train home from a Manhattan day treatment program. While the lights were on in the train as I looked out the window, all I could see was my reflection. I could see the faintness of the world outside, but the lights inside were so bright I could hardly see what was outside the window. There were always a few times during the ride that the lights would flicker and go out in the train. In those brief moments, I could see quite clearly out the window: the cars passing, the people rushing home, wandering in and out of shops. The eating disorder was like turning the lights on so bright that I couldn’t see outside myself. If I was consumed about weight and food and calories, I couldn’t worry about anything else. I couldn’t feel anything else. I was numb and unaware.
Turn off the lights, stop the addiction—the crutch, and suddenly you start SEEING and FEELING everything. This is often the most overwhelming part, and wonderful. God is faithful! He brought me to a church that had an emotional healing course (listen here) that I desperately needed. While working through some things with my group, I commented that I didn’t know God’s timing, I didn’t know why I had to suffer for 10 years, why didn’t He heal me right away? My leader encouraged me to ask God why. I was a bit resistant, I felt like I shouldn’t need to know. God is God and His ways are higher than mine. But her words have lingered in my mind. God, why?
I don’t think there is ever a simple answer to the question why. God is weaving a complex tapestry of the story and each thread is playing multiple roles, all worked together for His glory and our good (if we let Him). A year later, God gave me a glimpse to the why, and it goes back to the wedging. One Sunday a sermon was preached on the Hebrews 10:19-25, what was shared about verse 22 amazed me.
“let us approach God with a true and sincere heart
in unqualified assurance of faith, having had our hearts sprinkled
clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Hebrews 10:22 (AMP)
That word sincere is believed to be rooted in the Latin term “without wax” sine = without, cera = wax. The phrase came to be a term used to describe the quality of pottery or sculpture, as it was a practice of a dishonest artisan to take a cracked piece and fill it with wax and paint over it so it would look as if it was without blemish. Only to have the purchaser of the pot later have the pot fall apart or leak when filled with hot water. Ah! God is creating a heart “without wax” that can draw close to Him in true faith! A heart that would withstand the heat of trials and not crack, a heart that didn’t need waxy mask to cover the blemishes and weakness of a refining work left undone, a heart whole and sincere, and a heart yielded to the Potter.
“Let us approach God with a true and sincere heart in unqualified assurance of faith” Unqualified. What does that mean? We are ALL broken. We’ve all been unyielding to the Potter’s hands in some way that has caused damage to ourselves and likely others. None of us come to God whole. So in our own devices of healing perhaps we have slapped some wax in our cracks in hopes others won’t notice. Maybe we’ve painted over those waxed up patch jobs and hope that heat doesn’t get too hot for us to handle.
There is another tradition of repairing broken pots. Kintsugi is the method of repairing broken pottery by fusing the broken pieces together with gold. The result is a strikingly beautiful pot where the cracks are displayed with value instead of being covered up. This is how God heals hearts. He HEALS. He doesn’t tell us to hide our wounds or pretend they aren’t there. He doesn’t toss us aside because we can’t contain anything of value in our brokenness. He takes our pieces and fuses them together with His liquid love, a stunning gold that gives Him glory for our good.
But he knoweth the way that I take:
when he hath tried me,
I shall come forth as gold.
Job 23:10 KJV
This process is not easy and it hurts. It takes humility and action on our part. We need to give Him access to our hearts. Jesus is a gentleman. He won’t force healing on us. He will wait until we come to Him. And sorry to be the bringer of hard truth here, but we are never done healing on this side of heaven. There is always more available. This is awesome and amazing in some regards! I love seeing people who have been following Jesus for decades get to experience new facets of His healing and love! There is no such thing as Enlightenment in the Christian faith. We are all always in the process. We receive revelation of truth from the Holy Spirit, but it is nothing we attain by our works or earnings. It is by grace, we get the healing we don’t deserve, because He loves us first, even in our brokenness. Let Him be the liquid gold that holds together your broken pieces in extravagant beauty.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made
perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly
of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV