0:00:01 - (Kevin Lowe): Have you ever thought of life in the terms of a piece of clay pottery in which God, he's the potter, and he is molding our lives, designing our life into what it becomes? But that's where the question is, is what does it become? Where is life going to take us? Because if you're like me and you're like so many people, our life today is nowhere close to where we thought it was going to be when we were kids.

0:00:32 - (Kevin Lowe): And chances are it's probably not going to go in the direction we're thinking at this point either, because, well, that's just life. Today I'm sitting down with Morgan McCarver, a woman who is the author of a book called God the Artist. Morgan, she's an artist herself. Matter of fact, she's a potter. But that's not where she started, and that certainly wasn't her plan. No, Morgan, she was a dancer and darn good at it. Until, of course, life took her in a different direction.

0:01:09 - (Kevin Lowe): You're going to get to hear that story today. Today is equally her story as well as God's story of his work in her life, his work molding her, shaping her into the beautiful piece of pottery that she is. While at the same time, she talks with us about her story and the story of her book, God the artist, how she takes us through the process of making a piece of pottery guided by the Bible. This is an episode you don't want to miss, because this is a woman you have to meet.

0:01:48 - (Kevin Lowe): My friend, I welcome you to episode 270. Let's dive in. What's up, my friend? And welcome to Grit, grace and inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery, only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself. And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you.

0:02:15 - (Kevin Lowe): Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right path to take, will consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be. You know, the best. And the easiest way for you to get better at something, well, it's to track your progress. And if you are on a mission to become the best version of you, to start living out your best life, well, I think you should start tracking your progress.

0:02:51 - (Kevin Lowe): And that's exactly why I'm inviting you to download my brand new, totally free and may I say, quite awesome personal development tracker. It's called rise and thrive because, baby, that is what you are ready to do in life. All you have to do is text the word rise. R-I-S-E rise to 33 seven seven. Yes. Just grab your phone and text the word rise to 33 seven seven seven. And I'm going to get you information into how you can download this awesome new tracker and be on your way to becoming the best version of you.

0:03:35 - (Morgan McCarver): I grew up in a christian home. My parents are Christian and so I was kind of raised in and around the church. Growing up, I gave my heart to Jesus and was baptized at about seven or eight years old. And then from there, my faith was relatively just what my parents made it. They would take me to kids choir, so I went to kids choir. They'd take me to Sunday school, so I went to Sunday school. But my faith really became my own when I was diagnosed with scoliosis. And then I ended up having to have scoliosis, spinal fusion surgery when I was in 8th grade. I was 14.

0:04:12 - (Morgan McCarver): Yes, it was really a traumatic experience going from, I was a dancer at the time, so a very athletic person doing very bendy type physical activities. And then all of that was really taken away from me when I had that scoliosis surgery. And so that's really when my faith started to become my own. And I was really praying not to have the surgery. But that's not the story that God gave me. But through that, he enabled me to find my passion for pottery. And that has really kind of shaped the rest of my life. I ended up going to school for it, and I have a degree in ceramics, and now I have my own business.

0:04:54 - (Morgan McCarver): So all of that, if I hadn't had that pivotal moment, what I thought was the worst part of my life, I never would have the best parts of my life now. And I just attribute all of that to God.

0:05:05 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. God does work in mysterious ways, that is for certain. Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about dance. What kind of dance did you do? When did you get started on that? Because I know, I mean, you were really good at dance.

0:05:21 - (Morgan McCarver): Yes. It was really just a passion. My mom, I'm from South Carolina, and so like most southern girls, their moms stick them in ballet classes when they're about three years. So that's really when I started doing dance when I was a toddler. But I really fell in love with irish step dancing, actually. It's like really intricate footwork and high jumps and kicks. And you have two different types of shoes, some that are soft shoes and then some that are harder that you're trying to make loud noises and different things with. And so I started doing that competitively.

0:05:57 - (Morgan McCarver): I started taking irish step dance probably around the age of six, and then pretty soon after that, I was competing. And that was really my life. I would take classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then on the weekends, I would be at different competitions with my friends. And that was my life for years, honestly, through elementary school and middle school, until I had that scoliosis surgery.

0:06:19 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay. I was not expecting to hear that was the kind of dance you did. I've never even heard of such a thing.

0:06:27 - (Morgan McCarver): Oh, it is its own niche in and of itself. But the dresses are so elaborate, and they are very stiff, the way they're kind of designed, because it is attributing back to irish culture and their traditional dance form. So to perform, you wear these elaborate curly haired wigs and the really fancy bedazzled dresses and white high knee socks and black shoes. It's a whole thing. But, yeah, it was so much fun.

0:06:55 - (Kevin Lowe): It's almost like a cross between dance, but also a play in a sense of dressing up and whatnot. That's pretty interesting.

0:07:04 - (Morgan McCarver): It is a very elaborate costume, and it seems like you are judged just as much on your costume as you are on your footwork and technique. Yeah, it was always fun going to shows and seeing different people's dresses and things.

0:07:17 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Amazing. So you had mentioned that you ended up having scoliosis. How was that discovered?

0:07:27 - (Morgan McCarver): My mom's sister actually had it, and they found her. She was diagnosed when she was a lot younger than when they caught mine, and hers had just gotten more severe at that case. And for those who aren't familiar, basically scoliosis is a genetic type of disorder, but it really shows up when you hit a growth spurt. So for me, it was kind of that last growth spurt before high school. My spine was supposed to grow straight, and instead of growing like everybody else's, it grew from side to side. And so I had three different curves, creating what they call an s curve in my back.

0:08:03 - (Morgan McCarver): And not only that, but my spine was actually rotating as well. So my lungs were affected, my organs were affected. I couldn't take a full breath of air. So all of these things, they caught that. When I was in fifth grade, my mom just kind of knew what to look for. And so, thankfully, she was able to find that. And then moving forward, I was going to different doctors and wearing back braces to try to prevent the curve from getting worse.

0:08:28 - (Kevin Lowe): And did that not help the back braces?

0:08:32 - (Morgan McCarver): Not really. We had multiple opinions about how often to wear the brace and what that looked like, and I ended up going to Shriners hospitals for children in Greenville, South Carolina. And so I wore the brace for about three years, but every couple of months, I'd be going back for x ray kind of checkups, and they were just monitoring my curves. And the idea was that the beck brace would hold my spine where it was, maybe correct it, but at least hold it in place until I had stopped growing, because the more I was growing, of course, the more my spine was twisting. And so they were really trying to just get me through that growth spirit. And then when I stopped growing, I would just live with my scoliosis.

0:09:15 - (Morgan McCarver): But that really wasn't the case. It just kept progressing, and the back brace wasn't really doing what it needed to, to hold it. And so they realized that as I got older, through my adult life, this was only going to be more of an issue, and my spine was only going to contort more and more as I got older.

0:09:31 - (Kevin Lowe): Now, during this whole time of wearing the back brace, were you still dancing or.

0:09:36 - (Morgan McCarver): No, I was, and there were different rules during different times when I was wearing the back brace. Sometimes I only had to wear it at home. Sometimes I only had to wear it when I went to bed. But thankfully, I never had to wear it when I was dancing or performing. So that really didn't come into play there. And I also didn't have to wear it at school, which was really nice.

0:09:54 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes, absolutely. So ultimately, you had to have surgery. Take me back to that whole doctor's appointment and how that whole realization of having to have this surgery was on.

0:10:09 - (Morgan McCarver): You, I don't think I ever really realized that something so severe could potentially be where I ended up. And so when that diagnosis did happen and the doctor told us that surgery was going to have to happen, the surgery was scheduled for months out. It wasn't like an immediate thing. And so at that point, I just started praying and just begging God to heal me to make it so I wouldn't have to have the surgery. Because you hear of these amazing stories about how there's miraculous healing, and one day you have one diagnosis, and then something happens, and God has healed you in that moment, and you don't have to have whatever procedure or you're healed.

0:10:50 - (Morgan McCarver): So I was aware of these stories and aware of acquaintances, things like that that had happened. So I was just praying that surgery was not in my story, and I didn't really realize it. At the time, I think I was still too young of a Christian to really understand God's voice, but looking back on it, I know it was God's voice saying, if you don't have the surgery, then your story won't be nearly as good.

0:11:15 - (Morgan McCarver): You have to go through this surgery to get to the beauty of your testimony. And I really didn't want to listen to that voice, of course. And so for months and months, I was just praying that that wasn't going to be the outcome. And I don't think it really hit me until pre op a couple of days before that this is really happening and I can't get out of it. The doctors are still saying surgery, the x rays are not showing miraculous healing, and this is going to be what it is.

0:11:44 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. I can understand your mindset so much in my own story for you, though. When you finally went into surgery, did you know that you wouldn't be able to dance after I did?

0:12:01 - (Morgan McCarver): They had told me, which also one thing about me is I've thankfully gotten better. But especially back then, medical type terminology just makes me faint. And so they'd tell me enough of what I needed to know. But I didn't know too much about the actual procedure because it seemed like every time I was in a doctor's office, I'd just be passing out. But, yeah, I was aware that the recovery process was a year long, and in that year, I wouldn't be able to bend or twist or pick anything up that was over like six to ten pounds, depending on where I was in that year and different things. So I knew the recovery was going to be rough. I don't think I was really prepared for the mental aspect of just everything. The surgery, the physical change, all of that was just such a mental.

0:12:55 - (Morgan McCarver): I guess explosion is a good way to put it, that I wasn't really prepared that all of these things were going to affect me mentally as much as they did.

0:13:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. So how old were you when you actually had the surgery?

0:13:07 - (Morgan McCarver): I was 14. So it was the last semester. It was January of my eigth grade year. So that year long recovery was the last semester of my middle school year and the first semester of my high school experience.

0:13:22 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, wow. So talk to me a little bit about recovery afterwards. What did that look like? What did life look like for you for that year?

0:13:34 - (Morgan McCarver): For most of the year, it meant carrying a pillow everywhere I went because chairs were not compatible. Now my back is just completely fused with two titanium rods and 18 screws. So the curvature of my back does not necessarily fit your standard chair. And unlike a normal human body, I can't conform my spine to that. I still forever will just have zero movement or flexibility in my spine. So for that time, it meant carrying a pillow so I could lean against something.

0:14:06 - (Morgan McCarver): It meant I couldn't carry my textbooks because each textbook weighs six pounds. So I had textbooks in all of my classes. My teachers are really good about letting me leave textbooks in there. It meant that I was out of school for several weeks and I was pretty much just doing school at home until I was able to go to school. And then when I went to school, I couldn't sit at the desks that had the chair connected because that's twisting your back to get into the desk. So then I was sitting at the teacher's desk and I couldn't open the heavy school doors, so a classmate would have to open the doors for me. So that's what I talk about when I mentioned the mental things, it was all of this unwanted attention that I didn't know was going to need to be made for me and the accommodations.

0:14:49 - (Morgan McCarver): The teachers and students were incredibly kind, but still, it's just that unwanted attention. As a high school girl, body image is an issue anyway. And so you throw on spinal fusion surgery and everyone knows you've had it and you've been out for so long, and now your body doesn't look like everybody else's and you can't even carry a textbook around. So it was all of these things that were just kind of culminating at the same time?

0:15:14 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow. It's a lot. It's a lot to have to go through at any age, but especially as a teenager for you, when we are talking about your faith, it's easy for a lot of people when they go through a traumatic event, when prayers weren't answered, you had to have the surgery. A lot of people tend to turn away from God, but I gather that you did not.

0:15:42 - (Morgan McCarver): I would say yes, but I don't know if I necessarily ran towards God either. I think my faith just kind of stayed what it was, and it was that way for up to a decade after my surgery. Just remembering that God is faithful. Telling these truths to myself about God isn't focused on my outward appearance. God cares about my heart. My physical body is not nearly as valuable to him as my soul is. And telling myself these truths, but not necessarily truly believing them and not really understanding why he gave me the journey and the experiences that I have until a decade after because I didn't talk about my surgery for that ten years.

0:16:27 - (Morgan McCarver): I didn't want people to know. When I met new people, I just didn't bring it up. I tried to hide it any way possible. When I bend over, I'd tried to hide any kind of straight, flat back that I had, which I can't really hide it, but there were things that I would try to do to not tell people and just fit in. And then after that decade, really looking back all through that ten years, I had been pursuing pottery and focusing on my technique, getting my degree, gaining an experience.

0:16:59 - (Morgan McCarver): And so after that decade, I kind of came out of this shell and looked back and was able to see that all of these things that I've been able to do, God gave me the story to be able to do them. But I never would have had that first discovery and love of pottery if it hadn't come from or come out of that scoliosis experience. So my faith, actually, after that ten years, it's just been so strong. And now I'm really trying to catch up on all of those years that I missed telling everyone about my testimony, because now I'm out of the thick of it. I'm able to look back with clarity and see that this story could only have come from God.

0:17:41 - (Morgan McCarver): No one goes from a major spinal fusion to pottery because the clay is heavy, it weighs 50 pounds, and you have to bend your back over a pottery wheel. So there's a lot of things in the studio that I have to make accommodations for myself. It's not a natural transition, but it's the story that God's given me. And seeing that and seeing him work through that just makes me want to tell everybody about it.

0:18:04 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. That's so beautiful, so powerful pottery. How did that into your life?

0:18:11 - (Morgan McCarver): It really came about when I was recovering during that summer break. I didn't have my dance friend group because I couldn't go to dance during that time. And I didn't have my school friend group because school was out. And so my mom just signed me up for a pottery class, just get me out of the house, back into civilization, just a week long kids camp. And that really was pretty much my first academic introduction into pottery.

0:18:41 - (Morgan McCarver): I had played around with clay and play doh growing up, but this was my first real kind of lesson in ceramics, and I just loved it. I loved the personal connection of directly touching a clay with your fingertips and manipulating it in that way. And the clay was so flexible compared to my now rigid body that I wasn't able to be flexible and dance anymore. But I could get so much movement and creativity out of the clay that I was just really drawn to that kind of relationship with an art medium. And so from there, I just kept signing up for more classes and trying to get into the studio every chance I get or got. And it was just amazing to see how I found a community there as well.

0:19:23 - (Morgan McCarver): It was mostly retirees because they didn't really offer classes for teenagers. So I was with people 30 plus years older than me, but they were just so kind and welcoming to let me come into their space and work alongside of them and learn from them, too.

0:19:37 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Amazing. Oh, my goodness. Now, as you kind of developed your skill and your talent for doing pottery, is there a particular style that you feel like you excelled in or you enjoyed more than another?

0:19:51 - (Morgan McCarver): I would definitely say that when I was starting out, handbuilding was what I was really drawn to, which is basically manipulating the clay with your hands, not necessarily using the pottery wheel, because the pottery wheel was a struggle for me just because of my physical limitations and my back. And then strength wise, my muscles had atrophied because I hadn't used them like that and I wasn't supposed to lift. So there were elements of strength that I just couldn't perform on the wheel for a while.

0:20:22 - (Morgan McCarver): So I really started out with handbuilding, and then from there, when I got to college, my work really progressed into slip casting. So if you're familiar with, like, Wedgwood pottery, it's kind of that style of just working with molds and different aspects of that. I make a lot of plaster molds in my work and incorporating porcelain clay with floral designs as well. So it's interesting to see kind of how my work has progressed, and it's becoming more and more dainty if you.

0:20:52 - (Kevin Lowe): It, I love it now. So you mentioned that you actually went to college and got a degree in this.

0:20:59 - (Morgan McCarver): I did. I went to Anderson University in Anderson, South Carolina, the South Carolina school of the Arts, and it's one of the few places you can still major in ceramics specifically.

0:21:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. Amazing. Now, when you were in college and you're going through getting your degree and stuff, what kind of ideas did you have for after college, as far as, did you know right away, like, I want to move to a certain city, open my own studio. What were your plans, and how did those plans kind of align up to where you are today?

0:21:31 - (Morgan McCarver): Honestly, my plans did not align up to where.

0:21:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Welcome to life. Yes, exactly.

0:21:39 - (Morgan McCarver): It's amazing. And I think it's one of the things that really kind of tuned me into, oh, this is where God wants me. And recognizing, like I talked about, recognizing that God has given me this story of the experience of pottery. Because originally I applied to go to school to do art education. And before I even got there, a mentor convinced me to switch my major to ceramics. And even in the ceramics program, as much as I loved it, I was telling people I was going to be an event planner and I was going to work in hospitality.

0:22:13 - (Morgan McCarver): I graduated in 2019, so Covid hit a year later. Hospitality, obviously was not really what it could have been at that time. So all of these different things kind of kept interfering with what I thought my best plans were. Because, of course, all during the four years people were telling me, you can't do anything with a ceramics degree. Why are you going to school for this? Why are you wasting time and money on this?

0:22:38 - (Morgan McCarver): But I just knew that that was what I loved. And my parents were really great about letting me pursue my passion. But from that, I ended up going to work for a ceramic supply distributor, one of the largest in the nation. I worked for them for about two years, doing customer service, help desk type questions, even to the point of teaching classes, private lessons, and summer camps, things like that.

0:23:00 - (Morgan McCarver): And then from there, like I mentioned, it was kind of in the throes of COVID the thick of it. And so I wanted to focus on my own work, get out of retail, so to speak. And that's what actually brought me to Asheville, North Carolina, to work for a potter in her studio, as her studio assistant, and really help her with her business. But also at that time, I was kind of learning what it looks like to run your own business, your own pottery business.

0:23:26 - (Morgan McCarver): How do you set up a booth for festivals? How do you photograph your work appropriately to get into galleries? So all of these other aspects that I hadn't learned in the retail setting, I was now learning in the personal business type setting. And eventually I realized, oh, I am pursuing this. But also, the Lord has given me all of these opportunities to be able to pursue it, because I've been trying to jump ship this whole time, and the Lord's constantly bringing me back.

0:23:58 - (Kevin Lowe): I love it. Don't you sometimes feel like God's just looking down on us? It's like, oh, Morgan, if you would just listen to, stop. Stop trying to go your own way. I'm trying to show you the way. And it's truly like a parent, a father with their child, as the child, we definitely don't feel like they know the best route, and we're going to do it our way. And then eventually we realized that they were right.

0:24:27 - (Morgan McCarver): Right, exactly.

0:24:30 - (Kevin Lowe): So I'm curious now, talking about when we got into the pottery and stuff, I assume I'm kind of skipping forward ways in the story, but where did the idea come to write a book?

0:24:43 - (Morgan McCarver): You're skipping ahead and behind. It works out. But basically, Anderson University is a christian school. And so I had been hearing from my professors about all of these connections to how God made us and he made us as creative beings and we can use our talents for him. So that had kind of been playing in the back of my mind for those four years. And then when I was graduating, I was about to lose my community that I had had for four years.

0:25:14 - (Morgan McCarver): All of us were about to leave, and I was really looking for a devotion book that I could read about pottery and God, because I know there's so many verses in the Bible about that, and I couldn't really find what I was looking for. So in 2019, when I graduated, I began just jotting down those verses and kind of taking notes, and the Holy Spirit just kind of whispered, like, this is something you could maybe work on.

0:25:38 - (Morgan McCarver): So, of course, I rushed ahead and I tried to get something published then, and I'm so glad that manuscript got rejected because it was so rough. And I had not had the experience of working for the ceramic supply distributor or working for the potter. All the experience I had was degree from a university, which is a lot, but it's nothing like real world experience either. So I tried to get that manuscript published. It was rejected. I felt the Holy Spirit telling me just to put it to the side until I had gotten more experience.

0:26:11 - (Morgan McCarver): And I thought that meant decades down the line. It'd be like a memoir or something I would write as I was retired or something, sitting in a rocking chair. And it really wasn't. It was just a couple of years later, January of 2023, I had some extra time on my hands, and the Holy Spirit just reached back out, saying that it was time to revisit that manuscript. And so I did. And also within that span of time, I had read through the Bible all the way. It took me three years, but I'd never done that before.

0:26:41 - (Morgan McCarver): So I had all of the ceramics experience now, but I also had experience of reading all of these verses in the Bible about pottery that maybe I hadn't considered before. And so at that point, January of 2023, I rewrote the manuscript. It took about two and a half weeks, and I started trying to find publishers again. And during that time, I was just praying, lord, I tried this once, and it did not go how I wanted it to. So if this is your voice and you're really telling me to do this, then it's got to be you who gets this published, because I know nothing about publishing books. I've already tried once, and I couldn't do it by myself.

0:27:23 - (Morgan McCarver): So if this is really coming from you, I completely give this project to you, and it's got to be all you. And he really honored that and sent me. One publisher who reached out, said that it wasn't a yes or no, but I needed to lengthen the book. So I spent about a week and a half doing that, sent it back, and then a couple of weeks later, I got that acceptance letter, and I just know it's from the Lord. It's just been such an amazing experience.

0:27:49 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. That is amazing. That is absolutely incredible. And now your book was actually officially published in January, correct?

0:28:01 - (Morgan McCarver): Yes, January 9.

0:28:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Oh, my goodness. And your book is titled God the Artist.

0:28:08 - (Morgan McCarver): It is, yes. God the artist, revealing God's creative side through pottery.

0:28:12 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. So in the book, I'm assuming it has scripture. And along with scripture, is it you just sharing a story of how it all ties together? Does it have any of your personal story involved, kind of wanting to know a little bit more?

0:28:31 - (Morgan McCarver): Of course. Basically, I say you don't have to be a Christian and you don't have to be a pottery to read God the artist. I kind of go through both as we go along, but I just start at the very beginning of pottery, talking about Clay. What is Clay? What is it made out of? How do you process it straight from the ground? The different types of clay and how that relates to the human experience of how God has made us, each specifically capable of doing very specific things.

0:29:01 - (Morgan McCarver): But that doesn't mean we're good at everything. For example, a Stoneware clay is really great for bakeware, but it is not as good for the light, dainty type pottery, similar to how porcelain is, it can be thrown really thin and almost translucent because of the particles it's made up of. But similarly, it doesn't handle thermal shock well. So if you put it in the oven, it might crack. So in that way, I'm comparing and contrasting kind of the human experience to clay. And then from there, we dive deeper and deeper, going into the verses.

0:29:34 - (Morgan McCarver): And my hope is that from my ceramics and christian backgrounds, I'm able to interpret these verses to allow the reader to understand a deeper meaning, not just the surface level but really unpacking these verses from understanding the techniques of pottery and kind of what that looks like. So we go through the whole process of throwing the clay on the wheel, firing it, glazing it, and then at the end do go over the potter's house, which is probably the most famous part in the Bible about pottery. So we do talk about that as well.

0:30:07 - (Kevin Lowe): What an awesome idea for a book. That is so incredible. Before we continue, for the person who's like, woo, baby, this is awesome. Where's the best place to find your book?

0:30:21 - (Morgan McCarver): Of course, pretty much. It's published traditionally, so anywhere books are sold, you can grab a hold of it. But if you go to my website, www.morganmccarver.com, I provide links there for places like Barnes Noble, Target, all those good places to go ahead and order a copy.

0:30:38 - (Kevin Lowe): Okay, fantastic. Well, I will be sure that links to that are left inside the show notes for anybody who is interested in wanting to get hold of your book. That's incredible. Another question I have for you is what is it like? I'm talking about an industry, kind of like the artistic industry, or I'm calling it industry, but the art scene or whatever, how is that for you, being a Christian? Do you find a lot of people are christian that you're around or not? And I just am kind of curious about that.

0:31:18 - (Morgan McCarver): That's a great question. And I love telling people about this because I grew up in upstate South Carolina, so the art scene wasn't terrible. There were different grants or competitions, things to do, but there's a guild. But it's not like Asheville, North Carolina, which is known as one of the art hubs of the south, so to speak. And so moving to Asheville, for those who don't know, it's not really advertised as Christian.

0:31:47 - (Morgan McCarver): So I was moving from a small christian town to a larger touristy art town that is not Christian. And what I was able to really see at a certain, which just blew my mind was the Christians in Asheville have to be stronger about their faith because there's so much pulling them away and there's so much temptation in the area. So when I grew up around christians, everyone went to church because nothing else was open on Sundays. So everyone said they were a Christian.

0:32:24 - (Morgan McCarver): I went to a christian school, I went to a christian college. We really didn't talk about it that much because we all thought we were on the same page, which that should be the safest space to talk about it. We should be sharing our faith and encouraging others and asking questions if we are in that space. But that was not my experience. So, moving to Asheville, I have a lot of friends who are not Christian, but I also have a lot of friends who are. And they have really challenged me in my faith. And I've grown so much in my faith because I moved to this city by myself.

0:32:57 - (Morgan McCarver): I didn't know anyone except for I had met my boss, the potter. I had met her, like, once in person. And so I moved up here not knowing the area, not knowing the safe parts of town, not knowing family members, friends, anyone, really to live with. And so my faith really grew on my own that way, but then also noticing what's around me. And there's so many temptations, there's so many activities to do on a Sunday morning that you have to make a choice to go to church, and you have to choose to share your faith and to really reveal to others that you're a Christian.

0:33:31 - (Morgan McCarver): It really has challenged me in that way and has allowed me to witness to my friends who aren't Christian in a way that I didn't really get that opportunity when I was in South Carolina.

0:33:43 - (Kevin Lowe): It's very interesting. It's very interesting, the different areas, the different demographics. And I think I must applaud you as a young woman in this vibrant city to stay true to your faith, because it's not always the easiest thing to do. That when you have all of these temptations pulling you in other directions.

0:34:10 - (Morgan McCarver): I mean, it's completely God just giving me the grace to want to pursue him more. And there's nothing that I can do to make myself want to love him more. It's him giving me that grace to want that.

0:34:22 - (Kevin Lowe): I love it. I love it so much. So what's on the horizon? I mean, you just had your book published, but what's on the horizon? We've obviously learned that what the heck is the use of planning? Because God's got his own plans. But what is on the horizon for you? With life? With pottery?

0:34:44 - (Morgan McCarver): Yeah.

0:34:44 - (Kevin Lowe): Let's hear it.

0:34:46 - (Morgan McCarver): I've immediate horizon. I've got a solo exhibition coming up this spring, so I'm working towards that. And then from there, I've done a residency in blowing rock for the past two summers, so I'm hoping to be invited back this summer. So hopefully that's kind of in the works as well. I'm working on some new designs and things, so hopefully I can kind of refresh my work for the upcoming festival season that starts in the fall.

0:35:12 - (Morgan McCarver): But also, I know it's not happening right now, because of the way the world is, but it's a desire of mine to go to the holy land. I would love to see all of the pottery. I've just heard so much about the pottery of that area and seen pictures. I'd love to kind of see that in person. So that's a little bit farther off on the horizon, but definitely still a goal of mine.

0:35:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. For anybody who finds themselves in Asheville, is there a place that they can actually come, like a gallery, to see your pottery?

0:35:49 - (Morgan McCarver): Yeah, I'm in several places around the Carolinas and Tennessee, and all that is on my website. But I'm in the Asheville art museum gift shop and the cottage collections in downtown Asheville. I've even got some custom pieces in high climate chinese tea shop, which is a really cool restaurant, and they've had me do some pieces for them. But basically, where am I in Tennessee, I think. It's such a long name. It's like their heritage. Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center, I think is what it's called.

0:36:23 - (Morgan McCarver): And then I'm in some places in Spartanburg, like the kindred spirits, and I'm in places in Asheville, too. Figs. Anyway, so I'm kind of all over. But you can also shop my website or just message me on Instagram if you're looking for something specific. I love to take custom orders, too.

0:36:40 - (Kevin Lowe): Morgan, you are absolutely incredible. I love hearing your faith journey. I love hearing your life journey, and I love the fact that you were able to find something else to love, the fact that you had dance taken away from you. And I know that's not easy when it's out of your control to lose something that you love. But it's so amazing how you were able to adapt and you were able to find uses for other gifts that you never even knew you had.

0:37:19 - (Kevin Lowe): I think your story is beautiful and such a beautiful, just testament to the plans of Jesus.

0:37:28 - (Morgan McCarver): Thank you so much. It's been so great talking to you about it. And like I said, I'm just making up for lost time now, trying to share my story so others can benefit and see God working in their lives as well.

0:37:39 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely. Well, thank you so much and for you listening today. I hope you've enjoyed meeting Morgan as much as I have. Such an amazing woman who I can only imagine what is to come in her life. If you would like to get in touch with Morgan on Instagram for one of those custom orders or to learn about all the places you can find her art please check out today's show notes, where I will leave links to all of her information for easy access.

0:38:11 - (Kevin Lowe): My name is Kevin Lowe, and this is Grit Grayson. Inspiration. Get out there and enjoy the day.