Broken Vessel Pottery, the name given to my business nearly 6 years ago. I say it was given to me because at just the right time these words came to life on the page after a long season of seeking direction. I knew I wanted to make pottery after graduating but I needed a deeper “why” behind it all. Simply making pottery out of a love for the craft never really did it for me but sharing a message or a story through my work gave me a reason to create. My senior show was a take on inner beauty and that theme opened my eyes to this idea that I could share a message with my work and make a difference as a potter, so I continued to ask the question “what is my why?” and the answer came. 

 

Psalm 31:12 was the verse. 

 

 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel...

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Sitting on the floor beside my bed, I opened my Bible after a long week of revelation to the words broken vessel. This particular week in October 2013 was my introduction to the End It Movement, the church was on a mission to expose the sex-trafficking industry here in Atlanta and around the world. I hadn’t known of this degree of evil, it was crushing to my naive and protected understanding of the world. With a heavy heart, I sat down to read Psalm 31 and found the words that would shape my future work. If I, with all the love and support a girl could ask for could understand the emotion and feelings behind the phrase forgotten as a dead man and broken vessel, how much more would a person with deeper wounds? 

 

I often miss my younger self that believed and followed her conviction without doubt or fear. On the floor that day I wept tears of understanding and joy that this was the path laid out for me, this was my WHY; to use my gifts as a potter to show others their redeemable qualities in the hands of their creator. 

 

I wanted to be a visual of Isaiah 64:8 to the broken. 

 

Yet you, Lord, are our Father; We are the clay, you are the Potter; we are all the work of your hand. 

 

Broken Vessel pottery was born at that moment but life isn't so straight forward, is it? This has been a journey, even as I write I recount all the detours I have taken along the way as fear crept in. But this is the beauty in life, we all end up right where we need to be with more wisdom and a new perspective or.

 

Six years later, tucked away in the heart of Locust Grove, in the little pottery shack on Jackson street my why is still the same. Waiting and anticipating new opportunities to love and encourage the broken like me though my gifts as a potter. Because what this craft has taught me is the truth that we are not forgotten, we are not forsaken and we are all redeemable in His hands.

 

Psalm 31:14-16

 

But I trust in you, LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.

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-Abbye

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