Clay in God’s Hands
By Aimee Dominique.
Journaling is a means by which I prefer to pray. I dialogue with God, ask Him questions, listen to His Word and sometimes write down what I’m grateful for at the end of the day. I like to go back and re-read my prayer journals to see how God has answered prayers, taught me, consoled me, forgiven me, and walked with me. Often I need a reminder of how God has been leading me, how much He has done for me. Sometimes I am surprised to see that I am tempted by similar things from year to year. Journaling has been a privileged means of seeing God’s presence in my life. Through journaling I get to see how God wants to work with my apparent failures. Leaving religious life has felt like nothing less than leaving one culture and entering into another. #vocations Click To Tweet
Honestly, leaving religious life has felt like nothing less than leaving one culture and entering into another. It’s even more challenging when the culture I’ve returned to is supposed to be that of my own, that of my own people, my own country, yet it feels foreign to me. When over 10 years ago, I entered the convent for the first time, much of what has become the social norm didn’t exist. I never used a smartphone before and I feel lost when it comes to so many new forms of technology. I left religious life a little over two years ago and I continue to realize that the transition from the convent into the world is no less demanding than “sacrificing all” to follow the Lord to the convent in the first place. The transition from the #convent into the world is no less demanding than “sacrificing all” to follow the Lord to the convent in the first place. Click To Tweet
One day I was expressing to God my pain and frustration—why does my life seem like a contradiction and a failure? (That may seem a dramatic assessment, but I would imagine that others who have left religious life have experienced similar doubts and feelings from time to time.) As I was pouring out my heart to the Lord in journaling prayer, I wrote to Him about feeling dizzy:
Dizzy—this world, my American culture, with its Instagram, Facebook, social media madness makes me dizzy… Job searches that end in a laundry list of competencies and required abilities, licenses, etc. make me feel dizzy… My own weakness makes me feel dizzy… 
Not only can the first steps back into the world make you feel dizzy, this feeling can linger for years. There is the challenge of finding work, perhaps re-discerning a vocation, making friends, relating to people who you once knew, among so many other daily adjustments that often go unnoticed by those around you, but are felt with every step you take.
God recently revealed to me an explanation of my feeling of dizziness which consoled me. He reminded me of a passage in the Old Testament from the book of Jeremiah. God says to the prophet Jeremiah to go and visit the potter’s house. While there, Jeremiah discovers the potter is working at his wheel. Jeremiah writes, “whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased” (Jeremiah 18:4). As Jeremiah witnesses the ingenuity and perseverance of the potter, the word of the Lord comes to him saying, “Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done?… Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand…” (Jeremiah 18:6). From this, God helped me understand that I feel dizzy because He is working on me right now. I’m His clay and I’m on the wheel spinning, but I’m in His hands. That’s what matters. 
Clay is soft and impressionable. It doesn’t resist change but feels it very acutely, if clay could feel. If it was self-aware, clay might wrestle with feelings of shame about “turning out badly” in the hands of the potter on the first try. The important thing though is that the potter has a different perspective. The potter doesn’t get discouraged or frustrated with the clay. He tries something new. He is determined to continue his work. This is what God does with us. God revealed to me that it’s okay to feel dizzy and it’s okay to try something that doesn’t work out. He’s going to make everything work out in the end. He never gives up on us. St. Paul had this hope and perspective when he wrote, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6). We just need to trust, trust, trust, and surrender ourselves into His hands.
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