Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: TEARS - (as in crying) (10/04/04)
TITLE: Softening the Clay By L.M. Lee 10/04/04 |
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I simply could not take it anymore! I was desperate for a change. Every effort I had exerted over my situation for the last fourteen years had failed.
In fact, if I heard one more person say, “As soon as you forget about it, God will move,” I was going to reach down their throats, rip out their vocal cords, tie them in a knot and throw them in the nearest dumpster!
And now this! What incredible nerve! I can not believe the audacity of some people. Just who the blanky-blank did she think she was?
I bolted out the store ramming my shopping cart with a dynamic force powerful enough to intimidate any Caterpillar earth moving equipment. Charging through the parking lot, I lost my footing and then with all the synchronized precision of a slow motion replay I watched my arms frantically flapping air for support, legs sliding out at 45 degree angles and heard the painful thud of my derrière splattering on the pavement!
Ar-r-rugh!
Okay, I could not explode with the list of excellent four-letter superlatives clawing at the back of my throat for release; this was, after all a public parking lot inhabited by families escorting minors. Instead I took the appropriate recourse women have relied on for centuries to express emotional trauma, I wailed!
Not one single person seemed to take notice of my tirade. No one stopped to help me. Several people took extra caution to walk a wide berth around me, covering their children’s eyes and ears. No one wanted to come near this hysterical banshee.
Eventually I gathered myself. Rising I listened to the stretching rip of my panty hose. Great! Dirty behind, torn panty hose, strawberries bleeding on my palms and my shopping cart just dented someone’s Mercedes. Can today get any better?
I made it home, unloaded the car and managed to put up my purchases without further incident. Just then the phone rang. It was my best friend. I unloaded my angst.
“What is wrong with me?” I asked her, “Why can’t I get through? What am I missing?”
“I don’t think you’re missing anything,” she offered.
“Yeah,” I countered, “but if I wasn’t missing something God wanted to teach me, wouldn’t He have answered my prayers for deliverance by now?”
“How do you know He hasn’t?” she offered.
“Great,” I shot back, “If this is the answer to my prayers, God has His hands full with me. If I’m clay and He’s the potter…He’s dealing with a dried-out sun-baked knot head. How is He ever going to mold me into a more Christ-like vessel?”
“How does a potter soften clay that he’s working with?” she asked me.
“With water, ” I mumbled preparing myself for a lecture.
“Then that is how God will soften you as He molds you,” she pointed out.
“What’s He going to do, stick me out in the yard and hose me down?” I sarcastically retaliated.
“No,” my dear friend continued, “You’re so silly! He is always a gentleman. He opens the bottle of your tears, pours them gently over you and begins..."
Be merciful to me, O God, for man would swallow me up;
Fighting all day he oppresses me.
My enemies would hound me all day,
For there are many who fight against me, O Most High
Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.
In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust;
I will not fear.
What can flesh do to me? All day they twist my words;
All their thoughts are against me for evil.
They gather together,
They hide, they mark my steps,
When they lie in wait for my life.
Shall they escape by iniquity?
In anger cast down the peoples, O God
You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?
When I cry out to You,
Then my enemies will turn back;
This I know, because God is for me.
Psalms 56:1-9 (NKJV)
© 10-4-04 Lissa M. Lee