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If it weren’t for our friend Eva, I wouldn’t have known anything about pottery. She is a master ceramicist whose work can be found in museums. So over the years, I’ve come to appreciate excellent craftsmanship. Our family would go to the yearly art show and see all the best works from miles around. It was fun exploring each display and trying to find the perfect coffee mug. The handle needed to be big enough to fit my hand, just the right circumference to fit my grasp and with the perfect ergonomic turn to the lip.

 

This show had amazing works of art but it did not have the perfect present for Tristan. I was looking for a wolf mug. So I ordered it from a potter with an online shop.  It was Tristan’s trademark blue color and I asked the ceramist to depict a wolf on the front.
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When I pulled it out of its shipping box I was disappointed. While it looked exactly like the picture, I could tell it was not made by a master craftsman. It was hefty and twice the weight of the mugs we were used to.  The bottom was too thick, there was no gracefully turned edge around the rim, and it sat down with a heavy THUD.  But, it had a wolf! And that was the main thing for my
Tristy.
 Tristan loved that mug and used it every day until he went home to heaven. Now that he is gone, I use it to remember my boy.  Something that didn’t hold very great value has become precious.  While all of our other mugs have broken, Tristan’s mug is sturdy enough to last into my old age.  There’s no way I could have known that’s exactly what I’d need.
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One day we will see face to face all that God did with our child’s life and why their appointed days were shorter than ours. “All the days that were ordained for me were written in Your book when as yet there was not one of them.” (Psalm 139)  Until then, the Master Potter is at work, shaping the clay until it yields His results, not ours. When Job lost 10 children by satan’s schemes Job knew ultimately who was in control. He proclaimed of God, “Behold, He snatches away; who can turn Him back? Who will say to Him, ‘What are you doing?”  (Job 9:12)
 
It gives me great comfort to know that God was in charge of Tristan’s length of life. Satan lied, satan schemed, but it was all within God’s watchful care and power to make it otherwise. That purpose I will only find out in heaven.
Isaiah 64:8 

But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
    we are the clay, and you are our potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.

 
Isaiah 45:9  9c “…Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
 

God made a beautiful boy to live 18 years, 363 days. And when he couldn’t keep himself alive, God took him home. One day there will be no more curse and no more groaning and no more boys who cannot keep themselves alive. We will live forever in the New Heaven and New Earth as God intended us to be. With the Master Craftsman, the One who loves us best.

Dear God, Thank you for meeting my needs before I even had them. You know exactly what You’re doing. So many things look wrong right now. But You are a God who does no wrong. Thank you for showing me in Your Word how you DO make all things turn out for Your purposes for all the saints that have gone before me like Joseph and Moses and David.  I can’t even know all the beauty you are bringing from these ashes until I get there. Hurry! Come quickly, Lord Jesus. In Your name, Amen.

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