a lesson from steal your dollar city

If you have ever been to Silver Dollar City (where are my true Arkansans?!) than you have probably witnessed someone blowing glass in one of the shops. It is a fascinating process. It always blows my mind that glass can become a rose or a hummingbird or a million other intricate objects simply by the maker breathing into the glass. This fragile and delicate piece can take immense heat followed by immense pressure, and, somehow, it doesn’t break. I did some research, and the key is in the timing. The glass piece is transferred back and forth from different types of heat at different levels and then is allowed at least 14 hours to cool. Heat and more heat, cooling and more cooling, back and forth for hours on end. We are constantly put under different types of pressure in our lives: pressure to perform, pressure to conform, pressure to look a certain way, back and forth from heat to heat. Pressure is inescapable. As long as we are on earth, we will face the weight of expectations or disappointments, so we have to learn to allow the process to happen and trust we will come out on the other side better. Some times it will take longer than others. I read an article on a glass rose that took over a week to create. The sculpture had hundreds of petals with an elegant stem; it took special patience for the pieces of glass to become something that was gleaming with life. Like I said earlier, the key is in the slow process. As much as the glass blower was eager to see his piece of finished work, he knew that he must be patient and allow that glass to cool in time so that it can be the beautiful creation he intended it to be. Although, even after waiting, glass creations can still have broken at some point during the cooling. If or when that happens, the glass maker doesn't trash the glass. He reimagines and recreates the piece into another beautiful, creative, and intended object. When I think of this, I find rest. I find my way to keep from cracking. When I am under pressure, I can wade through the process by knowing 1. God is patiently waiting for me to become the treasure that the pressure was applied to create and 2. If I crack, God will get right back to work in turning the mess into something incredible. Pressure is a process of heating and cooling; it takes time. God is willing to be patient, and we must do the same. Though it can be painful or frustrating, pressures in life are intentional and hand-sculpted for us to become the beautiful thing that God had in mind when he breathed life into us.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11