Beautiful Gifts

                Life brings forth beautiful gifts.  Daily tasks turn into meaningful adventures that only God’s hands can divine.  Traveling down His path I am so very blessed every moment of the day, but special moments ring a truth stronger than any bell crafted on earth. 

I have thus been blessed on one simple trip to the public library.  My daughter’s Girl Scout troop has been given the opportunity to work with a potter in our small community.  When I heard about the place, I was very excited.  I have always wanted to learn how to do this art form.  We have a school which I looked into years ago, but the price is very expensive, too expensive for a mere hobby.  In fact, they may not even let regular people learn at their establishment.  A few years ago, I learned a friend from church threw clay and decided to open a business.  She put out feelers to have a class, but due to time restraints the idea fell to the wayside.  Recently, I learned of another area which is willing to teach the girls a little about pottery.  Secretly in my heart, I am hoping I can work with some clay as well. 

As Juniors, there is no pottery badge for the girls to earn, but we can make our own badge.  Going to the potters’ guild is not enough for the badge, so I started working on finding things the girls could learn.  At the library I found a number of books with beautiful pictures that they can peruse through.  I found a kids book about different simple items they can make in a short amount of time.  They can draw out a couple of ideas before we go.  I also happened upon a children’s book to read to them.  With my treasures in hand, I came home and forgot about them. 

While cleaning up and organizing, I saw the children’s book and thought I should probably read it to myself before I read it to the girls.  The story is quite deceptive in the simple words that float along the page.  By the time I finished, excitement raced through my heart.  The story is true.  The potter Dave lived in the 1800’s in the Carolina’s.  He had no last name.  Amazingly, he not only knew the trade of pottery but he also knew how to read and write.  Why is this so amazing?  He was a slave.  At some point in his life, he lost his leg.  One of the other slaves than ran the pottery wheel pedal as he made the pots.  Balancing on one leg, he threw 60 pounds of clay to make the pots larger than 20 gallons, sometimes as big as 40 gallons.  He truly was a master of his trade.  If this was not enough, he engraved his own poetry onto the pots.  All of this knowledge leaves me breathless just to be a part of it for one short story which I can share with little girls.

Many people may think I am “geeking” out about a minor event.  This could be true.  Anything historical pre Civil War can do this to me.  Add art and an underdog and I am hooked almost breaking out in a cold sweat.  But look at the beauty in the events: first, the opportunity to expose the girls to pottery; second, finding a children’s book to read from the public library; and third, having the main character be from my favorite era in history.  I did a quick look at Amazon.  I stopped after 60 titles popped up with the search words pottery, children.  God lined all of this up for me to be blessed by beauty.  Many people may see this as random events, but I will continue to feel the love of God’s arms wrapping around me in this small occurrence in my life.

Blessing to you all.