Sometimes the events of the world, like the attention being paid to Tim Tebow the last few weeks is good for us all. Every once in a while you need that few seconds, minutes or hours with your God. Just you and him, to remind you who you are, and why you are here. It is extremely rewarding to know, no matter what you are not alone. At times you may feel you are, but all you need to do is go to God.
When I saw Mr. Tebow take a knee and pray during a football game, I was proud for him. If his faith is so strong that in front of 75,000 people and millions more watching on television, that he can kneel and pray, how can you not admire his conviction? Regardless if he ever wins another game, scores another touchdown, he has shown the world and all who watch, he is a success. His parents are without doubt proud of him, as well they should be.
The Flawed Cross, very few of you have any ideal what this is. My mother passed from cancer in 2001, I was a bitter, angry man. How could a God who was so good, take such a wonderful woman in such a horrible way? While I was never what you would call a person who regularly attended church, I always found comfort and safety in the Lord. When my mother passed, I spent quite a bit of time questioning that faith, and being angry at no single person, just being angry.
Time heals as we all have heard, and as time went on I wanted to find the faith I was questioning, I searched, but I was lost in the anger, the grief. One afternoon I decide to build a cross for my older sister who spent the last few years of my mother’s life taking care of her. My sister had always been a strong Christian lady, she stayed strong through out the entire time my Mom was sick.
So I got some rough cedar and starting trying to make a cross. The minutes turned to hours and soon to days. What had seemed like a simple task was now consuming me. While I worked on the cross, I thought about my mother and her illness, and how she stayed true to her faith through out it all. I spent time thinking of my sister and how she had given up everything to care for my mom, and witnessed the strength in her faith.
The time I spent making that cross was special, I got to relive times with my mother and times with my sister. I got to return to who I was, the person my mother wanted me to be, the person I wanted to be. For less than twenty dollars, I built a Flawed Cross, filled with hammer dings, bad cuts, and mistakes, just like the man who built it.
To be totally honest, the cross did not turn out to be a beautiful piece of art. What it did was become an avenue for God to return to my daily life, to show he had never left. So, when I see Mr. Tebow, take that knee and pray, I admire him for it, I cheer him for it. I hope with all my heart it never stops for him, and that because of him, others join him in taking a knee. He is inspirational.
J. Brackston has since built several more crosses, spending time cherishing the people he was building them for, thinking of them for hours. THE FLAWED CROSS.