~Submit to the Potter's Hands~

There's a story about the couple who went into an antique shop one day and found a beautiful teacup sitting on a shelf. They took it off the shelf so they could look at it more closely, and they said, 'We really want to buy this gorgeus cup.'
All of a sudden, the teacup began to talk, saying, 'I wasn't always like this. There was a time when I was just a cold, hard, colourless lump of clay. One day my master picked me up and said, "I could do something with this." Then He started to pat me, and roll me, and change my shape. I said, "What are you doing? That hurts. I don't know if I want to look like this! Stop!" But he said, "Not Yet".'
'Then he put me on a wheel and began to spin me around and around and around, until I screamed, "Let me off, I am getting dizzy!" "Not yet", he said. Then he shaped me into a cup and put me in a hot oven. I cried, "Let me out! It's hot in here, I am suffocating". But he just looked at me through that little glass window and smiled and said, "Not yet".
'When he took me out, I thought his work on me was over, but then he started to paint me. I couldn't believe what he did next. He put me back into the oven, and I said, "You have to believe me; I can't stand this! Please let me out!" But he said, "Not yet". Finally he took me out of the oven and set me on a shelf where I thought he had forgotten me. Then one day he took me off the shelf and held me before a mirror. I couldn't believe my eyes, I had become a beautiful teacup that everyone wants to buy.'
There may be things going on inside us that we do not understand. But when we finally arrive at the place where God wants to bring us, we will see how it has prepared us for what God wanted for us all along.
~from 'New Day, New You' by Joyce Meyer~