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I’m a Little Tea Cup

Love this story or not, you will not be able to have tea in a tea cup again without thinking of this.

There was a couple who took a trip to England to shop in a beautiful antique store to celebrate their 25th. wedding anniversary.  They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups.

Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked “May we see that?  We’ve never seen a cup quite so beautiful”

As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke, “You don’t understand. I  have not always been a teacup. There was a time  when I was just a lump of red  clay. My master took me and rolled me, pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, “Don’t do that. I  don’t like it! Let me alone,” but he only smiled, and gently said, “Not yet.”

Then WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was made to suit himself ………

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…….and then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door.   “Help! Get me out of here!” I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side,

 “Not yet.”

Then  suddenly he puts me back in to the oven. 

Only it was not like the first one.  This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged.  I pleaded.  I screamed. I cried.  I was  convinced I would never make it. me.  That couldn’t be me. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful!”

Quietly he spoke: “I want you to remember. I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you’d 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 know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I 

I was ready to give up.  Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering, “What’s he going to do to me next?”

An hour later he handed me a mirror and said, “Look at yourself.” And I did.

I  said, “That’s not brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn’t put you back in that second oven, you wouldn’t have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. 

Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.”

Author: Unknown

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” Haven’t you been listening? God doesn’t come and go. God lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine” ~Isa 40:28 (Msg)