The Royal Artisan Quotes

“Every failure is a victory in the making if you learn from it.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“I am older now and have learned many things. I have learned, for instance, that God allows us to hold on to our human defenses for only so long. At times, he himself calls them forth, permitting them to function for a season in order to guard us from harm. But a day will come when, in his eyes, they have served their purpose and must be removed.
The hour your soul grows attached to that defense-- the moment your heart clings to it too much for safety-- is the moment God rises in his mercy to destroy it.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“Sometimes the pain in the pursuit becomes part of the gifting. Part of the way God’s call is formed. This injury may not be an end”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand
of the enemy.
Psalm 31:7-8”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“I thought Esther was your friend."
"She is, Jadon. But she is also a queen who must protect more than those she loves best. It is what makes her worthy of our obedience.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“Sometimes the pain in the pursuit becomes part of the gifting. Part of the way God's call is formed. This injury may not be an end, but God forming something deeper in you."
She narrowed her eyes. "Did you pursue everything? With us? Because to me, that also felt like a gift from God.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“You will forget your misery;
you will remember it as waters that have passed away.
Job 11:16”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“With silver ink, the scribe had copied one verse from the prophet Isaiah.

Yet you, LORD, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.

"How beautiful. I don't know how to thank you, my lady."
"No need for thanks." Esther smiled. "As a potter, you must be familiar with this verse."
"I have heard it a time or two, lady."
"Yes. But I want you to set your gaze upon the first line. How can you be an orphan when you have a Father in God? As a potter, you might appreciate the allusion and understand the rest of the verse better than most. But as an orphan girl, you have to learn all about the first claim. Seek your Father, that he may heal you.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“You are not to blame for what that murderer has tried to do."
She exhaled. "We each bear our own manner of responsibility."
He opened his mouth to argue, but she forestalled him with a hand. "The point is, they are harming my people. I want it stopped, Jadon."
"Yes, lady."
"We will tend Shoshanah's wounds. Then we will put an end to this hunt. I am done being the prey to some invisible foe.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“Yet you, LORD, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.

"How beautiful. I don't know how to thank you, my lady."
"No need for thanks." Esther smiled. "As a potter, you must be familiar with this verse."
"I have heard it a time or two, lady."
"Yes. But I want you to set your gaze upon the first line. How can you be an orphan when you have a Father in God? As a potter, you might appreciate the allusion and understand the rest of the verse better than most. But as an orphan girl, you have to learn all about the first claim. Seek your Father, that he may heal you.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“I feel like a clay pot sitting in the furnace. Come morning, I am not certain whether I will be riddled with cracks and find I have become useless, or if I will be rendered stronger."
Esther smiled. "How well you put it. I believe I have been through that blaze myself, and more than once. We all face the flames of life, whether we wear a crown or not." She opened and closed her golden fan. "I beg your pardon, Shoshanah. I know that my needs as queen have added to your burdens when you already carry much."
Sazana's mouth hung open. Had Esther apologized to her? A queen asking pardon of a potter? No. A friend asking pardon of a friend. She smiled warmly. "I only wish I could be a better help to you. To our people."
"Sometimes you have to tend to your own heart before you can help anyone else.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“We both used force against the clay. We both raised it only to knock it down. But the force I used broke it, whereas you only made it pliable and centered so it could be shaped. I weakened the clay, and you strengthened it. I diminished it, and you held it together."
She shrugged, not understanding the intensity of his gaze as he studied the shapeless mound on the wheel. "I am an experienced potter."
The wheel had long since come to a stop. Dust motes danced above it in the fat rays of sunshine that streaked through the window.
"It makes me think of God," he said into the silence.
"The wheel?" She grasped the allusion. "Jeremiah's potter, you mean?"
He smiled. "Yes. Jeremiah's potter: 'Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand.'
"Except that for years, when I saw God as the potter, I saw someone with my hands at the wheel instead of yours. Someone with too much force, who weakens us and breaks us down. Someone who destroys us. But looking at you just now, I was reminded that you can also be knocked down for good.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old."

Jadon added his voice to hers, reciting the words from memory.

"Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert."

His intonation, deep and thoughtful, brought the promise to life. She pondered the words. Could God do a new thing in the midst of this wilderness that her life had become?”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“Fried chickpea cutlets," he said.
"Oh." That sounded like a gift from heaven.
"A salad, fresh cheese, and a hunk of warm bread." He stuck a piece of it under her nose. "Smell that."
Her mouth watered at the aroma wafting from the buttered wheat. Esther's bread had as much in common with the bread of mourning as a loose rock on the side of the road with the jewel on the king's belt.
Jadon poured a deep purple drink from a ewer into two cups. "Water with mulberry syrup."
The fragrance of fried onions, saffron, and mint had her almost salivating like a teething baby. Sitting on the stool Jadon offered her, she bowed her head as he whispered a prayer.
She had to grin when Jadon closed his eyes and groaned after tasting his first bite.
He waved at the food. "Your turn."
She broke off a small piece of the chickpea cutlet and made a morsel with a piece of bread, trying not to feel self-conscious under Jadon's intense scrutiny. A myriad of flavors mixed in perfect harmony and exploded on her tongue. "Oh." She pinched off another piece of the cutlet. Words were wasted on this meal. Her mouth was too busy tasting.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“She had lived through years of teasing as a child because of her slow speech, first in Babylon, and later in Susa, being told she was a dolt, or worse, a bore, too dull to befriend. By the time she thought of the answer to one thing, the conversation had often moved in a different direction. People her own age had found her tedious, not having the patience to wait until she said her piece. To them, she was hardly present. Not worth the effort of friendship. She had learned to protect herself by not risking new friendships, a habit that had stuck into adulthood.
Jadon had been different from the start. He had waited on every word, his easy smile reassuring her anxious heart. Never once had he made her feel unwanted. At times she wondered if he had been born to understand her.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“He lingered in the periphery of her vision, studying her as she shaped a tall vessel. Her fingers had an enchantment to them as they formed the clay into curvaceous lines. Like Bezalel, the craftsman endowed by the Spirit of God with skill to furnish the Temple in Israel, she seemed blessed by something beyond human talent, something from God. An innate gift to create beauty from the very dust of the earth.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“Sazana realized that with a few words, Esther had won the workers' loyalty for life. Heart and soul, they were her men after this, because they knew she valued them.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“She was a rare beauty. She had to be to snag the attention of a king. But beneath the enchanting face, Sazana sensed an avid intelligence.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“How could I make my cousin understand that I had no influence, though I still wore a crown? Xerxes had removed the shield of his love from me when he had cut himself off from my presence.
But Mordecai was not as convinced as I that the strength of my husband's abandonment could outmatch the power of God's intention.
"Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" my dear cousin asked me. As far as he was concerned, with or without the king's affections, God could open the doors of favor to me.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“The dried pink petals tucked within had long since lost their sweet perfume. But the memories attached to them still evoked the enchanting scent of a perfect damask rose.
It had been the first flower Jadon had given her. After that day, he had brought her other blooms: irises, jasmine, roses. Armfuls of flowers. But none ever charmed her as that first single rose, which he presented to her shyly, his young face flushed and earnest.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the LORD tests the heart.
Proverbs 17:3 NLT”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies
and from my persecutors!
Psalm 31:15”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“What did your mother used to say about the potter's wheel?"
Sazana closed her eyes. "When you sit at the wheel, tuck your elbow against your thigh. That's the anchor that will keep your arm from quivering."
Arta joined his voice to hers, and together they finished her mother's oft-repeated advice. "But anchor your heart to God, and he will keep you from being shaken.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“You have every right to cling to a precious keepsake. The Lord knows you've lost too much already. I would never expect you to give up so small a comfort as well, Shoshanah.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan

“I kept my own counsel and hid my Jewish heritage as my cousin Mordecai bade me. Like Abraham, I laid the Isaac of my hopes and dreams at God's feet.”
― Tessa Afshar, The Royal Artisan