God's word is laced with images of Himself as a potter working His will on clay which has learned to submit. Jeremiah went down to potter's house. The process he saw there was same one you can see today: artist putting 100% of his attention into fashioning one particular pot. Just as our Western, Aristotelian-based logic has trouble with Jesus as simultaneously being 100% theos and 100% anthropos (and our heresies tend toward 50/50 or 60/40 solutions to mystery), we have difficulty with idea of God focusing 100% of his attention on each of us. Just take Jesus's word for it that hairs on your head are numbered. God's attention is 100% focused on what He is doing with you. And with me.

In Old Testament, Amos rhetorically asked "Doth clay say to potter 'What makest thou?'" with obvious answer being "No" and proof of what happens to non-submissive clay lying in shards in field around every potter's house. In New Testament, we have advantage of not having to ask question. We know into whose image we are being shaped. More importantly, since purpose of OT was to teach us lesson of law (we all fall short), New Testament message of grace for all us pots who feel like flawed vessels at best is that a heavy price has been paid -- a price with only token representation by 30 pieces of silver. It's no coincidence that those 30 pieces of silver ended up paying for a potter's field, a place undoubtedly littered with shards of pots which didn't quite measure up to standards of potter. Nor is it a coincidence that Matthew describes Kingdom of God as being like a treasure hidden in a field which "for joy thereof" one might sell all that one has to buy field. Note Hebrews 12:2. "...Jesus author and finisher of our faith; who for joy that was set before him endured cross...." No matter how badly flawed or even broken we may be, we are treasure for which Christ willingly laid down his life. We have right to submit ourselves (or once again to resubmit ourselves) to hand of Potter. We can do this with confidence, knowing that single Greek word translated as "it is finished" was commonly used when stamped across a legal judgment to mean "paid in full."

All praise be to Him.

My friend, Edith, was stricken with polio and paralyzed from chest down. She was approached by a member of her church who challenged her to get up out of her wheelchair by faith and walk. She couldn't and he berated her. She wiped away her tears and kept her faith and trust in Saviour of her soul. It wasn't in God's plan to heal her on earth but He gave her a sterling Christian testimony that defined her for years until God called her Home. We are encouraged by God to pray for healing; we do not have freedom to insist on healing by demand..

My mother's extended family watched her suffering all her life, but they remember most of all her unfailing faith. Her walk with God was not uneven; it was consistent. Her testimony was positioned there permanently as a standard against which rest of us measured our lives. Her "problem of pain" was no accident; it was not indifference by God to her anguish and travail. God used her pain for a reason: it was to refine her and to give her a lasting testimony to grace of God under pressure, tremendous pressure. Even in her tears and suffering, she knew she might not understand God's ways, but she could trust His loving heart.

When I was in college, our Old Testament professor, Rev. Harold Freligh, drew a large circle on blackboard. He placed a dot in center. Under it he wrote in large letters:

"In center of circle of will of God I stand. There can come no second causes, All must come through His dear hand."

Rev. Freligh did something else that has sustained me, especially now as I deal with my own pain. He drew a long horizontal line on blackboard and explained, "This represents a shelf. On it I place all my questions for which I have no answer. When I get to Heaven, God will patiently explain each one to my full and complete satisfaction."

And so it is with pain. I don't know why a dear six-year-old boy who loves Jesus is battling leukemia in an Illinois hospital today. I don't know why my younger Christian friend in Tennessee spends 22 out of 24 hours of every day in bed, weakened and ravaged by Multiple Sclerosis. I can't explain why my lovely friend in Arizona struggles with insidious and devastating pain of Sarcoidosis for which there is no adequate treatment and no medical cure.

I have placed each one of these friends on my "shelf," confident that their pain is not in vain, knowing that they haven't been forgotten by God or overlooked in His scheme of things. Each one is ministering every day of their lives to wonderful grace of Jesus, that eternal principle which makes their pain meaningful and their testimonies so enduring. Each one, I am confident, if they were able, would rise to full stature and sing:

Wonderful grace of Jesus, Greater than all my sin; How shall my tongue describe it, Where shall its praise begin? Taking away my burden, Setting my spirit free, For wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.

Wonderful matchless grace of Jesus, Deeper than mighty rolling sea; Higher than mountain, sparkling like a fountain, All sufficient grace for even me; Broader than scope of my transgressions, Greater far than all my sin and shame; O magnify precious name of Jesus, Praise His name!

Mariane Holbrook is a retired teacher and author who lives in Kure Beach, NC. She is a member of Traphill Baptist Church, Traphill, NC.