The Potter's Wheel on Mulberry Street

Margaret Chen had thrown clay for thirty-seven years in her small studio on Mulberry Street in Portland. Every morning before her hands touched the wheel, she did something her mentor had taught her back in 1989: she closed her eyes, pressed her palms flat against the cool wedging table, and whispered, "Not my vision today — Yours."

She told her students this was the most important technique she could teach them. Not the centering. Not the pull. The surrender.

"Watch what happens," she would say, "when you try to force the clay into a shape it wasn't meant to hold." She would press too hard, too fast, and the vessel would wobble and collapse into itself. Then she would start again — this time with open hands, responsive fingers, letting the clay speak back to her as the wheel turned.

The difference was never about skill. Margaret had plenty of that. The difference was about who was directing the work.

Proverbs 16:3 says, "Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established." The Hebrew word for "commit" is galal — literally, to roll something toward another, the way you would roll a heavy stone off your own shoulders and onto someone stronger. God does not ask us to stop working. He asks us to stop white-knuckling our plans. When we roll our efforts toward Him each morning — palms open, fingers responsive — He establishes what no amount of striving could: a vessel that holds.