"You take this big, barren, chunk of wood that doesn't look like its good for anything except maybe to cut up and burn for firewood, and you start chiseling away at it, and, little by little, something starts forming. And in the end, something beautiful is made out of something that other people might see as worthless. I feel like our lives are shaped that way."
Immediately, I thought of these works of art being a parallel for our lives. The most wounded, brused, and seemingly useless human material.....us, God chooses to transform into beauty! I see this same thing happen over and over. God's main business is transforming the hurt and grief in our lives into something else. Our lives are shaped by God. Yet, sometimes it feels like fire that burns away everything that we hold dear. Sometimes, it feels like a chainsaw at work on us, removing the things that are diseased or unhealthy. Sometimes, it is the gentle hand of God shaping our hurt, smoothing over the rough places and giving us a story that we can share in order to bless others. Whatever the case may be, God calls us to be his handiwork so that the world will know what God has done for us.
The chainsaw artist, Mark Chavez, spoke these words in an interview with a reporter from the Albuquerque Tribune. He was one of the firefighters that helped put out the fire that happened in the bosque in the summer of 2003. There are now four carved sculptures done by Mark at Pueblo Montano. The cottonwood trees that were part of the fire and now beautiful beacons in the Bosque that will bless many for generations. (see more at: http://www.cabq.gov/openspace/pdf/305.PDF )
What amazing beauty can come where there was once only damage and destruction!
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