Like a potter shaping clay into a beautiful vase, the Lord created us in the beginning, and He will continue to shape us now. Indeed, a great deal of peace comes with understanding this. He knows, for example, how to help us deal with the consequences of sin in order to make us whole and perfect. He knows how to aid us in responding to such things as catastrophic illness, nonsensical violence, or perceived failure.
Leslee Thorne-Murphy, "Peace I Leave With You", BYU Speeches, November 10, 2015
The clay doesn't ever say to the potter which shape it wants to take. No, the potter manipulates and molds the clay until it takes the shape that the potter desires.
Our Heavenly Father is the Master Potter, shaping us into the design that He knows we need to be. And this shaping and molding is unique to each one of us. He doesn't roll us out onto a factory assembly line so He can speed up the process, as if He has a deadline to meet.
No, our shaping and molding will take as long as the process needs to take until our final shape is absolutely perfect, without blemish. And each shape is absolutely unique and different from the next. Therefore, each process of shaping and molding takes different amounts of time. So, comparing our process to that of someone else is like comparing apples to Oranges. It is just not possible.
