Working the Mud

I thought it would be nice for my first post here to explain the meaning of this blog title. The phrase, marvelous mud house, originated with a children's story that I wrote about an amazing woman in Kenya that I met. Despite the hardship and difficulties in her life which I don't feel at liberty to share here, this woman radiated JOY! As I titled my children's book after this amazing woman and her "marvelous mud house," I began to let that phrase simmer in my mind.

Last weekend, we took our children to see the Great Passion Play in Arkansas. Before the show, a man called the Potter, gives a demonstration of creating a beautiful, useful piece of pottery out of a lump of clay and mud that is delicately, and purposefully formed by the potter. Then it is perfected in intense heat. He expanded the analogy given in Scriptures of the Lord being our potter.

Isaiah 64:8 reveals, "Yet, Oh Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." As I look back over my life thus far, I see the blessing, molding and shaping. But I also see the firing. Struggles with doubt, anxiety, and depression that I walked through, but that drove me to the Savior. Looking back now, I see the Lord guiding and forming me and drawing me deeper into relationship with him. Struggle seems to accomplish that. I've seen Him molding and shaping me, and for that I am thankful.

The Lord takes our failures, our struggles, and the mud in our lives and can create something marvelous: a marvelous mud house where He resides and is glorified.