This piece of wood
started out as simply a blank, flat, unworked, plain-old piece of wood. It does not look like much, but it’s a unique creation of God, with grain and form and color. Still, it is just flat and unmarked.
With time, however, it encountered traumas, it got ignored, it got a bit abused, stepped on, nailed in, screwed, and marred.
As it took this abuse, it sometimes did some additional damage of its own. It hurt both itself and others who encountered it. It may have given a splinter to an innocent hand, it may have dropped on a toe, or driven a nail or screw of its own.
Over time, the original, smooth surface got some pretty ugly marks, it split, it greyed. It eventually came to look nothing like its original lovely self from the outside.
But this piece of wood caught the eye of a craftsman.
This expert in wood spotted it leaning up against the wall, ignored in a cobweb-filled garage, and saw something beneath the nails and marks and dirt. He lifted it up, ran a knowing hand along the splinters, and took it home.
Removing the nails and screws was painful to the piece of wood. The cold metal had been in there so long, the wood had grown tight around it, the metal and wood fibers clinging tightly in their irritating, even toxic intimacy. The wood did not let go easily, but the carpenter was gently insistent, and the wood reluctantly let loose of the invading metal and, one by one, they came out.
Looking over the surface, the craftsman, nodded with approval. Yet the wood was still marred. Holes and jagged splinters remained, still causing pain and wounds to anybody who rubbed up against it.
But the craftsman patiently looked deeper. He was patient. Gentle, though the wood might say that the knife, the pry-bar, the sand paper were anything but gentle. He was loving, though the process of smoothing may not have felt loving.
The craftsman sees something more in this piece of wood. He sees the grain beneath the marred surface. He sees the potential. He sees the usefulness hidden behind the dirt and stains. He persists.
He brings a saw to the piece of wood,
cutting precisely. Pruning away the edges that inhibit the wood from its potential. He shapes the edges with a router – oh! That is not comfortable. It is loud, harsh, cutting, painful – and freeing. The form comes forth – gentle curves, lines of grace, grain re-emerging from beneath years of abuse.
Then gentle smoothing. Fine sand paper. Burs removed. Splinters knocked off, sometimes requiring a more harsh hand with a rough rasp. More lovely grain emerging.
Even more gently, stain and sealer applied – and OH! again. The originally intended beauty shines. The purpose revealed. Use, loveliness, and function brought forth!
Even the most egregious wounds and marks are woven together into the beauty and utility of the wood. Each mark telling its own story of pain and healing, loss and redemption, wound and loving restoration.
The craftsman smiles,
proudly showing the beauty of the wood, and sets it to its use – making life better for all who encounter it in its lovely redemptive destiny.