When I was in high school I had it in my head to make a life sized figure made out of chicken wire. I literally wrapped my body with chicken wire to help form shapes, cut the wire, and wired pieces together to form its shape. I then made a solid covering for the figure to make it more into a recognizable form. I was crazy with some of the things I tried, but I always have loved trying new things and working with my hands, so why wouldn't I make a chicken wire girl? Before I began this project I was not aware of how torturous this would be for my fingers and body. There was definitely some blood, sweat, and tears that went into making her, but in the end it was worth it all when I saw the finished result of the form.
These last couple of weeks I have been helping with our spring set for our churches stages. We have been working on constructing flower heads that will be used as a part of our installations. We have been working with chicken wire, door screens, and LOTS of wire. The screen has these little wire fibers that hurt so bad when they poke into your skin, so we have been wearing gloves for a lot of the constructing to help protect our hands, but many of the team still ended up with bloody hands. I have had so much fun sculpting these flowers and seeing what can be made from these simple materials that are not beautiful on their own, but when made into flowers were stunning!
As I have worked on these, I thought about all that we have been going through to make these beautiful flowers. I have also thought about what God goes through with us as He works on sculpting us into something beautiful in our lives. It must be torturous for him to always be battling with us and our sin as he tries to mold us to be more like Him. Sometimes we resist forming into the shape that He wants us to be instead of just letting him sculpt and be the artist. He makes beauty out of our messy lives and lets us go through trials so that we can become more like Him in His perfect beauty. It is best written in James 1:2-4:
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
I want to always trust God that He knows what is best for me and let Him have the control as I follow my creator who will direct my paths, instead of sculpting my own life and letting Him tag along. I KNOW He can make beautiful things out of us all!!