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| 11/11/2008 11:57:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | First Baptist Church presents "The Potter's Hand Ministry" on Sunday, Nov. 16, at 3 p.m.
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Grace Johnson has created a tender drama that speaks directly to the heart. She combines her skills as a potter and a storyteller to show how God has molded us, each His unique creation. Her potter's wheel has become a means to share God's own work in her life and she will take us on a journey to the heart of God.
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The public is welcome to attend this presentation. It will be held at First Baptist Church, 515 2nd Avenue NW, Glenwood. Refreshments will be served. There will be a free will donation for The Potter's Hand Ministry.
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Potter to speak about her journey as God's vessel
“Together they will continue to ‘present God as the potter, whose passion and power transforms wounded, broken vessels into vessels of honor.’”
Contributed by Jan (Ronning) Stadtherr
This article originally appeared in the Senior Perspective.
Grace Johnson says she was practically born in Sunday school. Her family went to church every Sunday. She was raised in a very religious home where everything seemed to be perfect.
"But it wasn't," Grace said sadly. "There were problems, but they were never talked about, and everything was brushed under the rug."
As with many baby-boomer families, sex was never discussed. Grace buttoned her shirts to the top or wore turtlenecks, never wanting too much skin to show. She lived with shame.
"Sex was dirty, and it was never talked about. In fact, on Sundays we never had chicken breast, we had chicken chest."
That is just one of the many stories that Grace shares in a powerful, moving message in her non-profit ministry, Potter's Heart Ministry. She and her husband, Bert, have traveled in six states during the past eight years speaking at churches of all denominations. While sitting at her potter's wheel, Grace's story is told, which is based on the verse from the book of Jeremiah 18:6 - "Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in mine."
From her home ten miles south of Willmar, Grace talked about her troubled childhood, the years of anorexia, sexual abuse, depression, and a failed marriage which was brought back together again through her new relationship with God.
During the process of creating a vessel from a lump of clay, Grace, the potter, compares the steps of making pottery to that of God, the master potter, who creates beautiful vessels of us, the clay.
With a wide smile, she begins her message, "I am Grace, I am God's Grace!" She said that at one time she thought she was a nobody, but that God didn't create her to be a nobody. "He created me to be a very important somebody!"
With great force, Grace slams a large lump of clay on to the table. During this process of "working" the clay, she kneads it like stiff bread dough, throws it on the table, wedges it with a wire to eliminate air pockets and then repeats the process over and over in order to make it more pliable and easier to work with. Breathing heavily as she continues to throw, she tells her audience, "If you have flabby triceps, take up pottery!"
She then places the lump of clay on the wheel, and begins to control the rotation with her foot.
Wetting her hands frequently, and sprinkling water on the clay, she explains, "The clay needs to yield to me. But it can't yield by itself. It needs the potter's help."
She reflects that the same is true with God. We, the clay, need to yield to him.
Bending over the wheel with her nose nearly touching the clay, she directs pressure with her thumbs into the middle of the spinning wet lump. With frequent drips of water, the walls of the new vessel begin to rise between her hands to form the body of a pitcher.
"It looks pretty good, doesn't it," she asks. "We spend a lot of time worrying about what we look like."
As a teenager, Grace was touched inappropriately by a good friend of her parents. She never told anyone of the abuse.
"I was ashamed!" she confessed. "If I told my parents, they wouldn't have believed me, so I lived in shame and buttoned my shirts up to my neck. I thought my body was dirty and I wanted to hide ... But God wants us to stand tall and hold our heads up high! He wants us to be proud of who we are."
During her senior year in high school, Grace became anorexic. After graduation from Central High School in St. Paul, she received her BA in fine arts with a minor in theatre from Bethel College. Still struggling with shame and the eating disorder, she moved to California and joined a theatre group in hopes of becoming a great actress. It was through the theatre that she met Bert, a man with long yellow hair, who drank too much, but still became the love of her life. They were married a year later in 1978, and the drinking increased.
During the early years of their marriage, Grace worked as a full-time potter. "I sold my pottery at pottery parties, just like Tupperware parties."
After four years of marriage, their first child, Hanne, was born, followed by son, Dain, two years later. Grace continued to spend many hours in her studio creating pottery.
One day she propped Dain in a corner as she worked at her potter's wheel. As her new vessel was nearly complete on the wheel, Dain began to fall over.
"It was either saving my baby or saving my pottery, so it was then I decided to pack my pottery away and raise my children. I could always go back to my pottery." Three more children were born - Leif, Isak and Lacy.
Grace admits that the marriage was falling apart and the only thing that gave her worth were the children.
'I prayed my children would be the best!" the mother proudly declared. She home-schooled them, but, that too, suffered and the children rose against her. Now Grace had another challenge - depression.
"I tried to be spiritual by going to church and inviting women to our home for prayer meetings where we prayed for our husbands," Grace recalled. "I tried to keep my Christian image up. I became very angry and was hard to live with. Year after year I was hiding behind this façade, and then God let everything fall apart."
Due to his addiction, Bert lost his job and they had to sell the home she loved. They took their troubles with them and moved to West Central Minnesota.
During her pottery demonstrations, Grace refers to the various parts of the pitcher - the body, foot, neck, mouth and lip.
"The interior is the heart of the vessel. It's the most important part," she added as she placed her hand inside to create a larger heart within by also applying light pressure on the outside with her other hand. "The potter has to give it a heart."
Once the heart is finished, Grace creates the mouth and lip. She "pulls" a smaller lump of clay with water in order to form the handle and attaches it to the pitcher.
"Isn't it beautiful?" she asks, and as she picks it up, the walls of the pitcher collapse. The audience gasps.
But now that the pitcher is destroyed, Grace continued, "The pitcher needed more time to dry. Time - it's something a potter uses a lot of. And, we too, need time. Instead we get inpatient and foul things up... This pitcher looks like a reject now... I felt like a reject, but God helped me to see... He raised me up!"
She added that reject clay is the most precious clay. She reformed the collapsed pitcher back into a lump of clay, reworked it, and placed it back onto the wheel to form yet another beautiful vessel with one of her favorite hymns playing in the background, "The Potter's Hand."
She also talks of the perfect brown teapot she made and describes it as "exquisite." She admired it so that she would have "secret rendezvous" with it in the laundry room. It was during one of those private times with her teapot that God spoke to her.
"He told me that he wanted to be with me just like I wanted to be with my teapot... and so with my button unbuttoned, I said, 'Yes Lord, I'm your creation and masterpiece ..."
The Johnsons moved to Minnesota in 1997 relocated three times before settling on a turkey farm near Blomkest. Bert manages two barns of 52,000 turkeys and loves being called a farmer. Their marriage of 30 years has healed. With God's guidance, Bert gave up his addiction to alcohol and returned to writing poetry and creating digital art that can be seen on the ministry's web site, www.thepottersheart.com. The children are doing well and the family recently celebrated the marriage of daughter, Hanne, who is a teacher.
And Grace has conquered her self-hate, shame, depression, and boasts that she is finally gaining weight after 31 years. This summer she will make more pottery in her studio, and come September, she'll share her story once again including in California. Rather than selling the pottery, they ask only for a donation.
Beaming with pride, Grace says she is so grateful to have Bert in her life. "I wouldn't be able to do this without him. He's such a great help to me!"
Together they will continue to "present God as the potter, whose passion and power transforms wounded, broken vessels into vessels of honor."
Once broken, Grace, too, is a vessel of honor.
Cutlines:
Grace Johnson, the potter, shares her love and passion for God through her ministry, The Potter's Heart. (Photo by Bert Johnson)
The potter's wheel plays an important role in Grace Johnson's ministry. (By Jan)
Throwing clay pic:
Grace's creation of pottery and storytelling skills are interjected with humor including, "If you have flabby triceps, take up pottery." (By Jan)
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