Making It

I used to love the Dollar Stores. How great is it to walk into someplace and EVERYTHING is the same price! No price checks at the register, no looking for the price tag or the label on the shelf. A buck. Even I could figure this out. Though I did have a problem when they had, say candy bars, two for a dollar. Ok, two I could figure out but if I were buying for a group and needed like 25 I started to panic a little. 25 is more than the fingers and toes I have AND it's an odd number so there'd be change involved. I sweat and start to shake when I do math and invariably the clerk would ask "Sir, may I help you?" and I would have to drop the candy and run away so as not to look like an idiot.

When my kids were little the Dollar Store was a great place at Christmas time. You could go in there with $30 and get ALL your Christmas shopping done. I took Terri in case there was math involved.  Good times.

Nothing you bought held up though. I mean, it's a dollar right. I remember trying to cut open a plastic bag with my dollar scissors. Nope. I tore open the bag and off came Barbie's head. Oops. Same with everything you got there. Nothing was made to last. Except the candy. I still can't get that off of me...

I like to make things. As a kid I loved to help my mom make cookies, help my dad make things with wood, with nuts and bolts. I guess that's why I work in the construction field- I get to make things. Hopefully things that'll last.

 I was watching a a show on Netflix the other day about how things are made. One of those shows that take you to the factory to show how cars, pants, computers and dollar store Barbies are made. Some things are so complicated with so many moving parts it's a wonder it ever all comes together and actually works! But they do and hundreds or thousands are boxed up and sent out every day. Simply amazing.

The thing that fascinated me the most were the car factory turning out thousands of such complicated machines. And not really the machines but the machines that MAKE the machines (is that confusing? I almost got lost). Who made these things? They are so complicated and precise, cutting metal, screwing screws, attaching and soldering tiny pieces in place, all at a blistering pace. It almost seems impossible. How creative these things are.

It makes me think what a wonder WE are. How we're put together and made.Not just out bodies but out soul and spirit too. Often we hear life is a process, a journey, and that God is making us into something wonderful. We're no dollar store Barbie but the real deal from Mattel. (well, I'm a Ken I think). The process is often loud and noisy and hot and dirty but that's how life is sometimes. Often it's not much fun but God has made these special sort of machines: situations, trials and tribulations really, to cut, grind, shape and polish you into this work of His creation. If we could just stand back from time and space and see Him working. We'd be so impressed.