Jar of Clay

2 Corinthians 4:7 (NI V)

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

Good morning Zebras,

This is an old z-mail, it was written in January 2010 but the message is never far from my mind.  And this morning as I found myself once again praying this passage of scripture I thought I would share.

This weekend Gary was relaxing and watching a little TV and I stopped to see what he was watching. It was a “documentary” about Susan Boyle.

After watching fifteen minutes of the show I figure I am the last person in the world to hear about her, but in case you don’t know who she is, she is the woman who went on “Britain’s Got Talent” and blew them away.

She was a 47 year unemployed overweight woman who has bad hair and a pretty unfashionable outfit. Coming on stage she doesn’t look like anything special in fact the audience is sort of laughing at her and then she sings.

And everything changes because Susan Boyle is a jar of clay, nothing special on the outside but filled with an amazing talent.  We too are jars of clay. But what we have on the inside is not the ability to sing, but the power of God.

Every year our family makes new Christmas stockings where we put pictures of things that represent our year. For example my daughter Katherine, who turned sixteen this year, put her car and Nick made a small model of the Washington Monument to commemorate his 8th grade trip to D.C.

I put a variety of items on my stocking this year. I put a tea cup and saucer to represent the woman’s tea, the Proclaim logo from the fall Awana conference and an envelope with a zebra stripe since I spend so much time writing z-mails.

And because it is my greatest desire that God will use me even though I am a 52 year old, unemployed, overweight woman with intermittently bad hair who likes to wear clothes from a gas station...I put a clay jar.

Of course, since this z-mail Susan Boyle has gone on to great success and now looks like a singer. She has changed her appearance to fit the task.   But to me, she will never be more impressive then she was on that very first day.

Love,

Jill