My freshman roommate at BYU introduced me to pottery. Spencer would come home from his Ceramics 101 class with his finished creations and explain how he had made them. I was particularly interested in all of his glazing techniques.
Toward the end of fall semester, Spencer had a larger pot he was creating that he wasn’t going to be able to finish. Boris, as he called this pot, still needed to be dried and glazed.
Spencer asked if I would finish Boris.
I agreed, with no guarantees that I would create something up to his high standards.
Over the next few days, Spencer oriented me to the pottery studio, and I watched him complete some of his other pieces. He explained his vision for Boris but told me to use my best judgment with the time and experience I had.
As a final step, he signed his name on the underside of Boris and told me to add mine, showing that we had both played a part in his creation, even though my part in the process was yet to come.
Completing Boris would require me to add Ceramics 101 to my winter semester schedule. I did, although more out of loyalty to Spencer than any particular desire to take the class.
I completed the final steps of Boris’s creation, and it was satisfying to bring him home to Spencer before he left on his mission.
Learning the Potter’s Work
I ended up loving the class.
I found satisfaction in a creative outlet that would also teach me something about God.
Creating a pot begins before the clay takes shape. The clay is kneaded like dough to remove air pockets and create a smooth, even consistency.
The prepared clay is then pressed firmly onto the center of the throwing wheel with a little water.
Next, the potter uses wet hands and steady pressure to center the clay as the wheel spins. Centering is critical. It is the foundation for everything that follows.
The potter presses into the middle to open the clay, carefully leaving enough at the bottom to form a base.
Then the walls begin to rise.
With fingers pressing against the clay from both the inside and outside, the potter gently pulls upward. Each pass makes the walls taller and thinner, gradually creating a cylinder. From that simple cylinder a bowl, vase, cup, or countless other items can be formed.
The rim is smoothed, the base cleaned, and the shape refined before a wire separates the pot from the wheel.
Once it dries to “leather-hard”, it returns to the wheel upside down for trimming, refining the profile and adding a foot if desired. Many potters write their name and date inside the foot.
The pot then dries completely to bone dry before its first firing. Afterward, it can be glazed and returned to the kiln. Under intense heat, the clay and glaze are transformed into the finished piece.
We Are the Clay
Near the end of his writings, Isaiah summarize all that he has been trying to get across to us:
“But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand” (Isaiah 64:8).
This life is a process of us becoming what God would have us become: like Him.
He knows what experiences we need to shape and refine us. He knows where pressure needs to be applied. He knows what needs to be removed. And He knows what He is creating even when we cannot yet see the finished piece.
In order to teach Jeremiah this same principle, the Lord sent him to watch a potter.
As Jeremiah watched, “the vessel that he made of clay was marred” (Jeremiah 18:4).
But the potter did not throw the clay away.
It seems that, without missing a beat, he simply began working with it again, making “another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it” (Jeremiah 18:4).
After observing this hands-on lesson, Jeremiah was told by the Lord:
“O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel” (Jeremiah 18:6).
In other words, if a potter can work with something that doesn’t turn out as planned, can’t God do that with us?
Yes, He can.
When the Vessel Breaks
However, once a piece of pottery is fired, it simply cannot be wetted again and reformed. In one sense, it is more durable; in another, it becomes breakable.
The story of Jeremiah continues as the Lord instructs him to gather some of the leaders of Judah and, in dramatic fashion, smash a piece of pottery in front of them. Unlike the clay on the potter’s wheel, this vessel could no longer be reshaped. Its breaking was to symbolize the judgments of God that would come upon them. The people of Judah had repeatedly refused God’s warnings, choosing instead to walk after their own devices and seek other gods.1
We can break too.
Some of that breaking comes from our own choices. Some comes through circumstances we never would have chosen. Some comes simply because mortality is a place where things break.
But broken does not mean discarded.
David wrote:
“I am like a broken vessel . . .”
Yet, a few verses later:
“But I trusted in thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my God.”
“My times are in thy hand . . .” (Psalm 31:12, 14-15).
The vessel may be broken.
But it is still in His hands.
Beauty in the Broken Places
A few years ago I first heard of kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with lacquer and powdered gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, kintsugi highlights them. The repaired fractures become part of the beauty and history of the vessel, giving it a second life.2
God doesn’t throw us away when we are broken.
He just doesn’t.
In fact, He expects us to bring Him our broken pieces as an offering to Him.3
Our Potter not only knows how to shape us and form us; He knows how to repair us.
All we need to do is put ourselves in His hands.
The Work of His Hands
Being in His hands does not mean we will always remain as we are. The Lord’s work in us may involve molding and shaping. At times, it may even feel like carving away parts of ourselves we would rather hold onto. Sister Tamara W. Runia described that process:
“There is sculpting taking place within each of our souls. To invite the Savior to become involved is hard. Our pride gets in the way.
“He’ll lovingly chasten us to get our attention, but He waits for an invitation before He can really go to work.
“Then He will start carving, sometimes surprising us with how abrupt and aggressive the work feels.
“But as time goes on, we will begin to see the work of His hand. God is shaping us into something only He knows we can become.
“And one day, when all the suffering and loneliness have ended and our pain is gone, we will be able to step back and look into the mirror of our own soul. Then we will “stand all amazed” and feel to fall at the Savior’s feet and thank Him. We will thank Him for all of it—the molding, the shaping, the pain, and the adversity that have helped us become more like Him.”4
His Name Written Upon Us
We can trust Him through the kneading, the centering, the shaping, and the trimming.
We can reach for Him through the repeated fires we endure.
We can trust Him when the shape of our lives does not look like the one we imagined.
And when we break, we can believe Him when He tells us that broken does not mean ruined. In His hands, even the fractures can become part of something beautiful.
I think back to Boris.
Before I had done any of my part, Spencer had already written his name on the bottom. Then he invited me to add mine because both of us would have a hand in what that vessel eventually became.
Maybe there is one more lesson in that.
We spend our lives in the Potter’s hands: shaped, centered, opened, stretched, trimmed, fired, sometimes reshaped, and sometimes repaired.
And in the end, when someone sees what we have become and asks who created us, we can show them that His name is written upon us.
We just need to put ourselves in the Potter’s hands.
Grounded and Reaching High
- Main idea: God is the Potter who shapes, refines, reshapes, and repairs us, never discarding us when mortality leaves us marred or broken.
- Practical takeaway: Trust the Potter through shaping, pressure, fire, and repair. Place what feels unfinished or broken back into His capable hands.
- One question to ponder: What part of my life am I resisting because I cannot yet see what the Potter is shaping, refining, or repairing within me?
Lead image by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash
- see Jeremiah 18:12 and Jeremiah 19:10
- see “Like a Kintsugi Bowl” by Ifanomezana Rasolondraibe, Liahona, April 2020
- see Psalm 51:7
- Tamara W. Runia, “The Sculpting of Our Souls”, General Conference, October 2026
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