During the warmer months my wife and I like to work with discarded wood furniture to create something new. There is something beautiful about taking a chance on a piece of wood or furniture that was headed for the landfill or was slowly decomposing in a shed, barn, or attic. Forgotten, out of sight, unused. I am very careful not to say “useless” when it comes to wood. Unless it is rotten there will always be another use for it or a transformation of it that will make it a show piece rather than covered up and lost.
Sometimes the wood is covered up with countless layers of paint or water stains that it’s true beauty is hidden. In these cases it takes patience, hard work, and long hours to uncover what was there all along and to bring it out into the light. Over looked by most, it is in need of a rebirth. How is that possible? Wood, removed from the tree, cannot change, especially when it has been carved down and shaped.
No piece is too far gone or deserves to jettisoned to the rummage heap.
True, I don’t always see it. There are times that I have to learn from the eyes of others about what could be if it were cared for and given attention.
Reclaimed for a Purpose.
If you were to think of yourself as wooden furniture where would you be placed? Would you be covered in layers of junk, hiding the beauty that is the true you? Has life whittled you down to an odd shape or a small size? Are you the piece that is hidden away, are you in the center of the room, or on the way to the landfill?
When you look at yourself what do you see?
When Jesus looks at you He sees a beautiful piece of wood that has purpose in the world right now! Jesus does not see the layers, the stains, your age, the knots, or anything else that people point out. Jesus hung on wood to reclaim your heart, your life, to give you a purpose, to be the beautiful piece that the original artist designed you to be in this world.
Rev. Shawn J. Smith 