Pottery is among mankind’s oldest and most enduring crafts. The process itself feels like a work of art, as the expert potter carefully, patiently shapes a lump of clay into a beautiful, useful vessel. While finishing the work takes time and patient effort, the result is clearly worth it. It’s no wonder that pottery making is often used as a metaphor for how our lives are gently molded by the patient hand of God. 

But patience is not always a popular virtue today, when almost everything is instantaneous. We eat fast food, photos appear instantly on our smartphones, and we can quickly access almost any information we need. Waiting even a few seconds seems like too long, as we hurry from one app, one website, or one transaction to another. Our time is hardly measured in minutes anymore, but in bits per second—not just fast, but superfast.

This increase in speed has brought many advantages. But it can also lead us to be less than patient with each other and with ourselves. 

Patience does not mean suffering while we wait to get what we want - that’s more like impatience! When we are truly patient, we kindly and lovingly allow others the time they need to reach their full potential. We do not resent the fact that progression is a process, and we resist putting undue pressure and unrealistic expectations on others—or on ourselves—knowing that it will only hinder growth and create frustration.

Patience means not despairing when mistakes happen. It means making room for change as we all learn a better way. It means we will sometimes be offended, but we won’t harbor resentment or anger as we work out a solution. Patience inspires us to give people another chance and the benefit of the doubt, just as we hope they will do for us. Patience is the power that comes from hope and confidence that things will, in time, improve. 

Even in our fast-paced life, let us allow the Master Potter to do His work. If we are patient, we will see a beautiful result.

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Only those who are willing to risk heartbreak and disappointment will ever know what it means to truly love. 

As C. S. Lewis put it: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping [your heart] intact, you must give [it] to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket - of your selfishness. But in that casket - it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”¹ And ultimately, incapable of experiencing true love!

This simple truth applies to all of life's beautiful, blessed experiences—each one comes only to those who open themselves to the possibility of their opposites: joy and sorrow, heartache and happiness, abundance and loss. It is in the very prospect of pain that we learn to truly appreciate love.

Many years ago, a woman purchased a greeting card about love. She intended to give the card away, but she ending up keeping it because she liked the sentiment so much. Eventually, she framed it and shared it with someone she loved. The card read, “Another's heart is a rare and precious gift. Hold it gently and with both hands.”

When others give us their love, they give us great power—the power to hurt them as no one else can, but also the power to bless and lift and delight them as no one else can. And they have determined that this possibility is worth the risk. So when we love, we must be gentle with our criticism, generous with our praise, gracious with our forgiveness, and ever grateful for those who have entrusted us with their heart.

Truly, to love is to walk on holy ground. One who loves holds—in both hands—a portion of the potential, the joy, and the happiness of another. It is a sacred trust, born of the confidence that love is a song that never needs to end.²

1. The Four Loves (1960), 121.
2. See Larry Morey, “Love Is a Song” (1942).

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Few things release the feelings of the heart like singing does. It brings deep emotions to the surface that we might otherwise struggle to express. When we sing, we reveal what’s in our soul, and this honesty of heart connects us with others despite barriers of time, place, and culture. 

But sometimes we need a little help appreciating the power of music. One young man, searching to find his niche in middle school, had no intentions of joining the boys’ choir - at least not until the choral teacher approached him and asked why he was not registered for her class. He couldn’t quickly come up with any good reason or excuse, so she walked him to the school office and made the necessary adjustments to his schedule. She told him that she needed him in the choir, that he would love singing, and that she wanted to be his teacher. 

The next thing he knew, he was sitting in the front row of the boys’ choir. Placing him next to one of the strongest singers in the class, the teacher made sure the young man could not fail. And succeed he did. Singing in that choir changed him: he discovered his voice and learned about the powerful influence music could have in his life. Perhaps most important, he knew his choir teacher cared about him. She cared enough to expose him to music that would enrich his life for decades to come. He never became a soloist, and he may not ever sing in a choir again, but he still loves music and remembers with fondness his dedicated teacher. Both he and his parents still praise that wonderful choral director. 

Whether we blend our voices with others in a choir or simply sing in the shower or car, singing can lift our spirits, express our feelings, and help us make meaningful connections with others - and with the divine. The song of the heart can be more than a song; it can be a prayer, a confession of heartfelt emotion, an expression of love. 

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Inspirational Poems: Miracles Happens: Though troubles assail And war affrights Though government should fail And sickness unite Yet one thing secures us Whatever be...

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A woman who loved soufflé decided to make some for her family for a special occasion. But she became nervous when she read the recipe for the light, fluffy cake. Soufflé is not easy to make, and it has to be served quickly to keep it from falling. So as the years, holidays, and birthdays went by, she continued to save the recipe, not quite ready to attempt it. Her family grew up, and she grew old. Finally she gave the recipe to one of her children with this wise counsel: “Take the risk. Make the soufflé. If it falls, it falls. But you’ll never have it if you don’t try.”

Many of us have trips we wish to take, talents we want to develop, even friends we’d like to make, but our plans get caught in the inertia of daily living. And then, in what seems like the blink of an eye, the window of opportunity closes.

Perhaps we hesitate because we fear failure. Yet the greatest risk is refusing to risk; the greatest failure is refusing to try—it means we will never taste that soufflé, see that dazzling vista, or enjoy that grand accomplishment.

So how do we break free of our self-imposed limitations? We can start by trying something new. We can say hello to the withdrawn co-worker we’ve never spoken to. We can try a new food, or read a book by a new author. We can sing a song that has always seemed outside our range. We can sign up for a class we always wanted to take. We can use the vast offerings of the Internet to research a famous artist, find out about a recent scientific discovery, or start to learn a new language.

Don’t wait until “someday.” Today is what we have. As a wise mother once said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”¹

Like the soufflé, if we fall, we fall. But we’ll never know if we don’t try.

1. In H. Jackson Brown, P.S. I Love You (1990), 13.

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Every veteran has a story. Some spent their military service in the line of fire; others gave their service behind the scenes. Some carried weapons; some carried a medical bag. Whether on the ground, in the air, or on the water, all who willingly respond to the call to serve their country see it as a high and holy calling to protect, safeguard, and strengthen the land they love.

Former United States President George W. Bush observed: “We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation’s uniform.”¹

Every generation has the opportunity to be as great as the one that preceded it. We measure the value of a veteran’s service not by the length or the location of the conflict but by the heart and character of the soldiers. Every time brave soldiers respond to the call of duty, they have the opportunity to leave a legacy of honor for those who follow.

Like typical heroes, most would say, “I’m just doing my job” or “It was my honor to serve.” They don’t want to be placed on a lofty pedestal or adulated from afar. They see themselves as regular men and women who were simply willing to step up, do their duty, and serve their country. And yet it’s that sense of humble dedication to duty that swells our hearts with appreciation and respect for their service. They are shining reflections and visible symbols of the land we love.

Another U. S. President, John F. Kennedy, wisely said, “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”² This day and forever, let us remember with gratitude our worthy servicemen and women and pray for heaven’s blessings upon them.

<sup>1. Speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, published in New York Times, June 29, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/world/americas/29iht-web.0629bushtext.html.
2. Remarks at Amherst College, Oct. 26, 1963, http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/80308LXB5kOPFEJqkw5hlA.aspx.</sup>

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The year was 1918, the close of World War I. An American Red Cross nurse wrote a letter to the mother of a soldier who had died shortly after the armistice was signed. He had made it through the terrors of war without injury and then, sadly, succumbed in the hospital to pneumonia. Wanting the mother to have more than a brief message from the military about her son’s death, the nurse wrote of what she called the “little things that mean so much to a mother far away from her boy.”

“He was brave and cheerful,” she wrote, “and made a good fight with the disease” until he was too weak to go on. Now, she continued, he “sleeps under a simple white wooden cross among his comrades who, like him, have died for their country. . . . I enclose here a few leaves from the grass that grows near in a pretty meadow.”1

The nurse must have known that the mother had loved her son because that love was reflected in the way he loved others, laughing and talking “to the people around him as long as he was able.”2

And isn’t that what makes a mother? Profound and abiding love for a child. Inspired by that love, mothers are examples, leaders, diplomats, listeners, mediators, and mentors within and beyond the walls of their homes. And with that love, mothers shape the future, one person at a time.

For the most part, a mother’s skills are learned on the job. A mother has common sense not found in books, patience to wait up for a teenager, steadiness to keep smiling when the only word a toddler says is “no,” and forgiveness that holds these dear ones together—and ultimately holds society together too.

The nurse concluded her letter with a tribute to the soldier’s mother that could be penned about mothers everywhere. She wrote, “The country will always . . . honor you for the gift of your boy, but be assured, that the sacrifice is not in vain, and the world is better today for it.”3

1. Maude B. Fisher, in War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars, ed. Andrew Carroll (2001), 170-71.
2. Fisher, in War Letters, 171.
3. Fisher, in War Letters, 171.

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