This was sent to me by a friend. I found it timely, appropriate and applicable to much of the private correspondance with my readers right now. I was astounded by the request of one reader who quoted the words of a general authority in conference and then asked, “does this mean it is everlastingly too late for me?” I share this in hopes it will help him.
The Prayer
Why are you so good to me? I know I have struggled most if not all my life to be faithful, and I feel I have failed so much in so many ways. You plead with me to continue, to repent, and to trust you and the promises made. You are the one I have hurt, and yet you plead for me, and believe in me when I fail you so much.
I just pray I can repent and follow you. I pray I can love like you do and be like you are. I pray I can be the man my wife needs and wants, and that we both want me to be. I pray to be the father that is faithful, patient, long-suffering, kind, believing in you and in them. I pray the impurities of my heart may one day be truly revealed to me, that I may offer them to you.
Again, why do you believe in me? I hate the war that is within. I detest condescending and hurting those I love with such base desires. Yet I also know I have trusted in you. It comforts me yet doesn’t remove the pain or the scars of knowing I am still in the midst of a battle for my soul. So, why are you so good?
The Response
My work, my son, is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man. You are my work. Does the potter hate the clay? Does it hate the clay when its wet, and still malleable? Does the potter not understand what the clay is made of? The potter makes the oven and the fire the clay goes into.
Before the clay was even formed, the potter designed the potter’s shop to process the clay, and to make it into a vessel that can hold living water. A vessel that will withstand the later heat and cold to hold the items it needs to hold. The clay is used for many purposes. Some for cups. Some for bowls. Some for utensils. Some for tools.
In the same shop the potter also can make the tools designed to shape and mold the clay. Yet the potter loves most working with his own hands to mold the clay. If the clay can remember, I have molded the clay, and will finish my work in it, for the purposes the clay was made, it knows not while it’s in the fire.
But one day the clay will be finished, and only then will the clay know what it was truly made for. The potter knows each work of clay, and though He has set at times a work on the shelf for a moment, He knows when the clay needs to be finish.
Again, remember, I have touched you, like the clay. I know you. I have prepared all things for the purposes we spoke of together. And yet I must work the clay as I only I can. I love you my dear son. Remember that. I leave with you the remembrance of the touch of my own hands, as I continue to mold you. I do not forget. I will not and cannot forget.
Love you my son. Love you.
