Forging

I have been learning how to work with metals in a class at an art school in North Carolina.  You remember the old movies where the blacksmith pulls a red hot horseshoe out of the coals and starts hammering like crazy on it with a big hammer, then plops it into a tub of water and it sizzles and steams? Does that describe your life of late? (big smile)

As a creator of art, I think up something that I believe would be beautiful.  The next thing I do is find material that would look like what I have in mind.  And there are thousands upon thousands of different material; metals, paper, steel, copper, brass, silver, wood, rocks, precious gems, plastic, glass, etc., etc., etc.

Once I get the idea in my mind of what I want my end product to look like, I start gathering the material and tools I will need to make this precious item.  And there is a learning curve in this assembly of things.  First I have needed to learn what each tool will accomplish - make holes, make designs, flatten, curve, clip, saw, hold, etc.

Now I have my tools and my material - how do I put it all together?  Rivet, wire, solder, glue, leather strips, you get the idea.

Here comes the forging part.  It is accomplished by heating something up and then hammering like crazy and plopping it into a water bath. ha.  Like a blacksmith of old. The key to reshaping a flat piece of metal is the heat and then the pressure of the hammer causing the metal to respond.  If the metal gets too hard to change its shape somewhat, it needs to be put under the flame again and make it softer and more pliable.  Then the hammer again. ha.

The cool part of this is that the finished product is worth all that time it took for the end result of the artist's idea in the first place.  All creative things take time to become the amazing finished beautiful design first thought up by the artist.

Is that not perhaps similar to God working in our lives,  He being the creative artist with a Divine thought in His mind to produce for Himself and mankind a "One-Of-A-Kind Piece of Work"?