The potter's wheel

Have you ever had the opportunity to watch a potter at work, or to try your hand at it? It's more challenging than you might think. I took a pottery class one time, and although there were some talented folks teaching the class, they could only make their own  pots beautiful. Try as they might to teach me how to make something beautiful myself, my own work was clunky and misshapen.

Thomas á Kempis wrote these words, words which always seem to bring me up short:

Endeavor to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort soever they be; for that thyself also hast many failings which must be borne with by others. If thou canst not make thyself such a one as thou wouldest, how canst thou expect to have another fashioned to thy liking? We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults.

Today I hope to expend more energy in making my own life pleasing to God than I do in making the lives of others pleasing to me. Perhaps through the grace of God, he will allow me to do something beautiful today.