Rejected, Yet Made to Be Beautiful

Before I ever dreamed of becoming a woodworker or having my own woodshop, I collected some pieces of wood that I thought might have value someday. A couple of them were salvaged from the streets of "Rio Abajo" in Panama. A lighting hit a magnificent and old mahogany tree, sadly it fell right on top of a zinc-sheet-roofed one-man barbershop. To him, this was his livelihood, and the government gave him the tree to sell so he could recover some of his losses.

Fast forward to just about four years ago, I had sold two out of the six crosscuts I had collected with my brother. Together, they were worth about $6,000 to $10,000. If we had sold them at the beginning, we would have sold both of them for just $200 to $500. When pricing a semi-artistic piece, your experience and name are worth much more than what you're selling. If only that barber had known how much each crosscut was truly worth back then, even we didn't know.

One of the pieces was offered to a French expat business owner who was looking for a statement piece. He had had good experiences with us before and requested this piece for his house. He wanted epoxy resin on the center of the crosscut, but epoxy was a material we were not particularly fond of working with as it was the "in" thing to do at the time. We did it anyway and, unfortunately, we ruined it! When epoxy resin cures, it gets really hot and can crack if not controlled. We had to reject the piece as it was not what the client was looking for.

We discarded it and left it to gather dust for a good while, until my wife and I were on the hunt for a breakfast table. We were not ready to sell the wood piece for a subpar value, and it needed the right client, but time was an issue. So, we decided to take the piece for ourselves and work on it together. We made the crack the center focal point, and just like that, the piece came alive again. We knew it was beautiful, and the crack was just part of it.

As husbands, parents, and friends, we are quick to discard our failures, but it is in these failures that most of our true strength and worth is really found. We are made of successes and failures, and I assure you there is no growth, either for you personally, professionally, or for your family, without some risk, pain, and suffering.

Is there a crack in your life that resulted from pain or bad choices? Do not live under self-inflicted condemnation but move towards redemption and make something beautiful out of it. God has a special way of turning things that are part of our past and present pains into something great and wonderful. It may be hard to see at the time, but if you know how much you are worth to Him, then you can confidently know that there will be a time of rejoicing when the pain will be replaced with joy.

I hope you enjoy these short reflections. Feel free to leave a comment and share them with any friends who may find them enjoyable!

Until the next one,

Javier