There Are No Forks in God's Road.

Hi ALL!~ That is if I have anyone reading these anymore. I haven't been on much lately and I don't have any excuses either! Imagine that! I guess you could say I've been 'in a rut'. Let your imagination go wild there.

Several things have taken up my time lately. I've been trying to find a hobby, you know, something to eat up the time I waste, to allow God to use me in whatever way He sees fit. Since I was a kid I loved drawing, and I was ok at it, but when life took over I had put that all aside and really haven't visited it much during my busy years of raising kids and working. Because I want God to be the author of all that I do I prayed about it. I really felt led to get back to drawing but I had this great idea to even add to it by getting into wood carving as well. That's something that has always peeked my interest through the years. Isn't it awesome how some of those carvings tend to almost jump out at you and come alive? That's the kind that I want to be able to do.(Ya, don't we all?!)

So I ran with the idea. I researched it, like with everything, until I beat the subject to death. I wrote to a few carvers to get their words of wisdom and even got one that was willing to take me under his wing for awhile. I was so excited to start! Then I went and got myself all the 'beginners' tools and it took me a week just to find the right kind of wood. Thinking I was the smart one I grabbed a piece of red oak that was laying out by the wood stove instead of ensuring that I had something soft to start with. I just figured that once I learned how to carve with that, everything else would be like butter, right? HA.....what a mistake there! All I did was frustrate myself as well as the carver that was TRYING to teach me something. Lesson learned. We are NEVER as smart as our teachers. Next, I needed sharp tools. Since sharp tools are the ideal way to go when your taking delicate cuts out of wood, I needed to learn how to do my own. It took me another week just to get all the materials together for that, plus add a few days of trying my hand at it. It didn't go real smooth. I won't get into the gory details but luckily I still have 10 fingers left. I'm here to tell you, no matter how smart you think you are, it's never as easy as it looks and it's always a good idea to have a First Aid kit handy! So here I sit...I have a teacher, sharp tools, soft wood, and a pattern BUT I'm too frustrated and sore to give it a try! I won't tell that to my teacher though because I'm just too darned embarrassed.

All of this started with me wanting to do whatever God had planned for me. Since I tossed the 'artist' in me aside, I thought maybe God had plans for something in that area long ago but I had taken another path back then. And now when He reminded me of the talent he had given me from the start, I go and take the fork in the road AGAIN!

Isn't that just what we humans do? And we're so good at it too! God picks the plan for us. He steers us down the road we are to take, but we think we're so much smarter so we take another path, add our brilliant ideas and end up with bloody fingers. I won't totally give up on the carving idea but instead of jumping ahead of myself and obviously GOD, I'm thinking I will go dig out that old sketch pad and a pencil or two and see where that takes me. Then .....well, I'm not sure but I'll get back to ya!