Dear Friends in Christ,

     It was a sight to behold! My wife, Linda, will try her hand at anything creative. Anything. She started with ceramics, then tole and decorative painting, then porcelain snow babies and angels, then porcelain dolls, and mixed in there was the day she decided she'd like to try her hand at Bob Ross painting technique. Now, for those of you who may not be familiar with him, Bob Ross was that wonderfully soft spoken artist on TV with the huge head of hair who taught how to create beautiful oil paintings using ordinary household brushes.

     On the day of her first effort, I left for the office leaving behind this little artist of mine wearing a white frock, standing in front of an easel, a ladder and garbage can close by (which she was to use somehow to clean and dry brushes), a sheet of plastic covering the whole floor, and ready to push the "play" button on the VCR.

     When I returned at lunch time, there she stood in the middle of the living room, paint brush in hand, proud as she could be. She was covered in paint, there were splotches of paint on the plastic sheet, all over the ladder, garbage can, and easel; but there was evidently enough paint left to have created the beautiful painting on that easel. "You painted that?" I asked. She was so proud! (Some of her paintings are hanging in the parsonage.)

     Then she informed me that she thought she'd like to try her hand at pottery. Every place I saw a splatter of paint, I could envision a splatter of pottery clay, perhaps even thrown against the wall by a pottery wheel going too fast in her enthusiasm! With all the husbandly tact I could master, I carefully put my arm around her shoulder and said, "Honey, why don't you just keep at this for a little while? This is beautiful."

     At about the same time, I was part of an originating board of folks trying to put together a counseling and spiritual direction ministry in our conference's three westernmost districts--Asheville, Marion, and Waynesville. We struggled with what to name it. After wrestling with that for over thirty minutes, we were about to table the discussion and move on to another item, when I remembered a song I had recently learned. I went out to the car, retrieved my guitar, and came in and shared it with the group. The song described how God, as a master potter, shapes our lives, and then mends the fractures, brokenness and scars we experience and creates something beautiful of us once again. So today there is a Tri-District Counseling ministry in western North Carolina called "The Potter's Touch."

     Each of us is an extension of the Potter's loving hands. And we are sometimes the instruments through which he helps mend the lives of others. It is our essential calling as children of God. "By this," Jesus said, "all will know you are my disciples, by the love you have one for another." By merely being present, sharing a loving, encouraging word, helping to bear a load, we become part of God's loving, renewing touch in the lives of others, and God is glorified every time we are willing to be used by Him.

Yours in the Service of Christ and the Church

Bob

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