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The Teacup | |
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The Teacup | |
"You don't
understand," it said. "I haven't always been a
teacup. There was a time when I was red and I was clay.
My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and
over and I yelled out, Let me alone, but he only smiled,
'Not yet'. Then I was placed on a spinning wheel and
suddenly I was spun around and around and around. Stop
it! I'm getting dizzy! I screamed. But the master only
nodded and said,
"Then he put me in the
oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to
burn me, and I yelled and knocked at the door. I could
see him through the opening, and I could read his lips as
He shook his head,
"Finally the door
opened; he put me on the shelf; and I began to cool.
There, that's better, I said. And he brushed and painted
me all over. The fumes were horrible. Stop it! I cried.
He only nodded,
"Then suddenly he put
me back into the oven, not like the first one. This one
was twice as hot, and I knew I would suffocate. I begged.
I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see
him through the opening, nodding his head saying,
"'I want you to remember, then,' he said, 'I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone, you would have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurt and was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I had not put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but, if I had not done that, you never would have hardened; you would not have had any color in your life. And, if I had not put you back in that second oven, you would not have survive for very long; because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.'"
1 The word which came
to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
God knows what He's doing
(for all of us).
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