“Just as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."
~ Proverbs 27:17
The body rested in a fine mahogany
coffin. Funeral arrangements had been carefully
prepared; simple yet meaningful. His
face bore a faint smile, as if death had been painless. Thick, rough hands lay peacefully across his
abdomen.
Connor gripped his father’s lifeless hands. It may have been the first time that he’d really
studied them. They were cool like river
stone, yet callused and raw. Arthritic knuckles
and scarred fingers were the price that he’d paid for Connor’s education,
school activities and his future.
As one of the few remaining Blacksmiths in this country,
Darren’s hands had taken on the character of his life’s work. They melted, hammered and reshaped raw iron
into something beautifully functional.
He was old school.
His finished products relied on his God-given talent and
skillful execution. He understood that life
owed him nothing for simply existing; his family’s livelihood depended 100% on
him and the grace of God – nobody else.
It sometimes took hundreds of swings with a hammer, steady
and calculated, to shape iron into something useful. He knew that success never happened
overnight, but came from constant improvement, day after day for years at a
time.
Each day, the Blacksmith begins a new task and completes it
by day’s end. He understood the
importance of getting things done. And
once he’d completed his work for the day, he went home to spend time with his
family, leaving the day’s toils and worries for tomorrow.
And if mistakes were made, Blacksmiths fire up their forge
and remake the piece. He never got
overly excited when things went right or made excuses when thing went
wrong. Failures brought him closer to
finding a method that worked.
When old age finally overtook him, his huge hands seemed out
of place on his shrinking frame. Those hands that had pounded and formed iron
were timid at the end. They were not
made for the simplest tasks in his final days. They shook and were awkward when he tried to
wipe his mouth or bait a hook.
Connor glanced down at this own hands. He now saw his father’s hands in his own. They were a mixture of strength and tenderness;
tough but nimble. He recalled the hard
labor of his early years and the changes that led him to diverse kinds of work.
Not better work; just different.
We are what we do.
Because what we do with our life says more about us than what we say. Words can lie, but the body and the hands do
not. Your work is a sacred thing, a
vocation. And because of your hands, you
carry the story of your work with you all the days of your life. So start swinging!
Carpenter Jesus, teach me the ways of the
Blacksmith – fixing, hammering, and improving myself a little each day. Like iron being heated and reshaped, help me
view life’s challenges as a way to rework, remold and restart. Amen
