Shaped Stones

I had a wonderful devotional this morning and wanted to share. Actually lately I have had several great ones. If you do not already have this book "Streams in the Desert" and you get a chance to get it - do. It is so encouraging. It would be a great gift to give to someone going through a tough time. A really good friend of mine gave me a very nice leather bound one for my birthday last year and it has helped me tremendously. It has been such an encouragement to me.

Streams in the Desert

  by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

	Shaped Stones
	"I will lay thy stones with fair colors" (Isa. 54:11). The stones from the wall said, "We come from the mountains far away, from the sides of the craggy hills. Fire and water have worked on us for ages, but made us only crags. Human hands have made us into a dwelling where the children of your immortal race are born, and suffer, and rejoice, and find rest and shelter, and learn the lessons set them by our Maker and yours. But we have passed through much to fit us for this. Gunpowder has rent our very heart; pickaxes have cleaved and broken us, it seemed to us often with out design or meaning, as we lay misshapen stones in the quarry; but gradually we were cut into blocks, and some of us were chiseled with finer instruments to a sharper edge. But we are complete now, and are in our places, and are of service. You are in the quarry still, and not complete, and therefore to you, as once to us, much is inexplicable. But you are destined for a higher building, and one day you will be placed in it by hands not human, a living stone in a heavenly temple. "In the still air the music lies unheard; In the rough marble beauty hides unseen; To make the music and the beauty needs The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. "Great Master, touch us with Thy skillful hands; Let not the music that is in us die! Great Sculptor, hew and polish us; nor let, Hidden and lost, thy form within us lie!"