Masterpiece
Y ou are marble in the hands of Michelangelo. You are the
perfect material. You have the potential to be great. You have been
chosen by the Master. In your unrefined and natural state, there is
nothing that would give away the secret of the greatness which lies buried
deep inside your being, to the untrained eye. But to the Master, you are a
labor of love; a work of art; a reality invisible, which is fixed and immovable
in your original state. With His hands He will free you. He will remove
every flaw, every impurity - whatever would mar the beauty of the
sculpture completed.
To do so, He must apply pressure and forcefully remove these
imperfections. He will chisel away what is not needed. You will be
hammered and broken, and it will seem to you to be pointless - even cruel
- because you don’t see what He sees. What is ugly will be broken off and
chipped away, and only then will you begin to emerge and resemble
something noble.
His tools are not what you might imagine them to be. He uses pain
and suffering. They are like an acid that will eat away the rock beneath
them. He will unrelentingly labor over a single spot, removing what is not
useful, until the outward configuration reflects what was previously
concealed within.
Time has been spent. Adversity is the catalyst for change. In the
hands of the Sculptor, you will be made beautiful. But resistance to His
methods will only prolong the process, keeping you in bondage, and under
the weight of His hands. You are the figure I see today, because of past
grief. Today’s grief will disclose tomorrow’s substance.
Anna Black
February 23, 1996