The Potter’s House is typically a place of community, gathering and fullness. However, as the summer has progressed that fullness has diminished and it becomes a little emptier as the weeks go by. It is a strange experience to be in any place that is characteristically full and overflowing with people, when it is empty. There is a feeling of loneliness and purposelessness. Over the past week I have been planning the start of the fall semester and am anticipating the fullness and busyness of it all. In that planning I have spent time reflecting on the moments at the Potter’s House this summer that have neither been full or exciting.
Throughout the second book of Kings, the prophet Elisha performs a variety of miracles and one of these involves a women who has lost her husband and is in danger of losing her two sons in order to pay his creditor. She has nothing but a little oil in her home. Elisha instructs her to ask all her neighbors for empty jars, not just a few, and then go inside and shut the door behind her and her sons. She is then to pour her oil into the jars she has collected. The provision is that there is more oil than jars, and the woman is able to repay the creditor without losing her sons. Two images from this passage stood out to me. The first image was that in order to be full to the point of overflowing there needed to be great emptiness in this story. The woman was instructed to ask for “not a few” empty jars from her neighbors. She was faithfully obedient to the instruction to create great space for the provision of the Lord, something that is not easy to do. It is hard to not run from the empty moments in our lives, it is harder still to actively seek them out in obedience to God. But those moments of emptiness offer the space needed for God’s provision to fill us to the point of overflowing. I have felt led and continue to be led to those empty jars this summer. To find places within my life, students’ lives, and the ministry itself where God’s grace and mercy can restore and fill to overflowing.
The second image that struck me was that of being instructed to shut the door behind her. Having the doors open at the Potter’s House is part of our witness to our neighbors and community. This summer it has felt odd, to see them not open quite so often; however, in this too God has been working. In closing the doors of the Potter’s House I have had the opportunity to go out and see what God is doing in the individual lives of students this summer. First I was able to visit several students working at camp for the summer, and to see just how transforming it can be for both the student and the campers. At camp I saw students from Edinboro leading and modeling Christ’s love to junior high age campers in many ways, yet I was struck by one specifically. Each night the counselors allow campers to place questions in a box, and then spend significant time answering these questions. Some questions are profoundly silly and others profoundly serious. Whichever question was asked, the counselors took time to answer the campers genuinely and with Christ-like patience.
I was also able to visit Alison (who lived at the Potter’s House last year) in Ocean City, as she participates in the Ocean City Beach Project. Alison is spending her summer with 19 other college students studying, learning, and understanding how to lead from who they are created to be in Christ. She daily shares Christ through her life with those she works with in the community, people she meets at the local laundry mat, playing Frisbee, volleyball or just spending time at the beach. She is also excited to bring back new ideas and perspectives to Edinboro and the Potter’s House as she returns for her junior year. I am no less eager to see how her experience will change and grow our community in the coming semesters.
So through closing the doors of the Potter’s House for a time, God has shown the influence and impact that Christ, through these students’ lives, is having across states and generations. Your support and partnership with this ministry is what makes this all possible. Your thoughtful investment in the lives of students is enabling change and transformation in ways beyond our knowing. So thank you sincerely for your faithfulness and presence in His work at Edinboro University.
