Last week I was in Cuba working as a carpenter on a construction job at a local church in the interior of the country. I worked alongside a tremendous carpenter named Ernesto. I am sure that Ernesto looked at me a couple of times and thought more than once… “Why do they give me the new guy? He doesn’t even know how to hammer right.”
Ernesto took his time with me and taught me how to be a “little carpenter” and without knowing it, he taught me a lot about life. One of the 1st days we went up to the roof to take down the forms that had been used to frame out a wall. As we were taking it all down he instructed me to remove all the nails from the wood.
As I was removing the nails I noticed that the majority of the nails were bent and twisted. So I asked Ernesto where he wanted me to throw these away. And with a perplexed look he answered “Throw them away? Here we fix the nails and we use them again.”
I started to think about the nails and how it compares with the lives of people.
- How many times do we toss people aside who have made wrong decisions resulting in their lives looking all twisted and distorted?
- Or perhaps we feel that because of past choices in our own lives we are twisted and bent out of shape to the point that we can no longer be used.
The reality is, that placed in the hands of the great Carpenter, lives that are twisted and bent can be straightened out and used once again.
If you find yourself bent from your past, there is hope my friend. Get ready to be used once again – you still have much to give.
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