Today is National Play-Doh® Day.

How long has it been since you’ve dug your hands into a great big glob of blue, red, or yellow Play-Doh®? Remember how much fun it was to craft a whole host of creations by squeezing, rolling, and molding the colorful substance in the bright yellow containers? Maybe you even had a Fun Factory, where you inserted the modeling dough into molds and then squeezed out the fun shapes.

Play-Doh brand modeling dough has been around since 1956 when brothers Noah and Joseph McVicker invented the compound. Originally it was designed to be a wallpaper cleaner (don’t try that at home!), but its similarity to modeling clay, without the toxicity or mess, made it a better toy. In fact, Joseph McVicker became a millionaire before his 27^th birthday after re-releasing the product as a toy. Since that time, more than 700 million pounds of the modeling dough have been sold.

Over the years, sparkling, scented, and glow-in-the-dark versions of this product have been produced. But the real attraction is how easy it is to sculpt and fashion any number of creations using this soft, malleable dough. Then when you’re done, you simply squish your creation into one large lump and stuff it back into its can to use for another day.

Imagine how much fun God had in shaping us. He had all the colors, the variety, and the shapes imaginable at his fingertips to mold each one of us. Isaiah writes that God is the potter and we are the clay. God forms us and shapes us not only in the way he created us, but also through our experiences and the circumstances in which he has placed us.

He is the sculptor. We are his modeling dough.

And yet, Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We are all formed by your hand (Isaiah 64:8).

To Do

Have some fun with modeling dough today! You can even make your own by using a recipe from www.kinderplanet.com/playdo.htm.

Also on this day . . .

1709—Samuel Johnson, the creator of the first dictionary of the English language, was born.

1947—The U.S. Air Force was established.

From Betsy Schmitt and Dave Veerman, 365 Trivia Twist Devotions: An Almanac of Fun Facts and Spiritual Truth for Every Day of the Year (Cincinnati: Standard, 2005). Scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation unless otherwise noted.