Lord will take the chisel to finish the sculpture

The Monument of Our Lives
By LoLyn


If I were a sculptor, wanting to capture the beauty of an idea to last eternally, I would be most careful in selecting the media. My children have some silly putty that is very soft and pliable. It is easy to mold and erase and change, but soon after it is set aside it returns to its original smoothness, no impression remains for very long. It is pliable and soft, and offers little resistance to the artist, neither does it offer any lasting value as a piece of art.
Sandstone grave markers in cemeteries stand year after year in the wind and rain, and the names and etchings are all but erased. Yet, there, in the same graveyards, stand monuments of granite and marble, on which the imprints chiseled with great effort against much resistance still shine brightly, reflecting the talents of the original artists.
We are all artists building monuments for eternity. If we build our lives against little or no resistance, we will make an imprint on eternity that will soon fade away becoming unreadable. But if we expend the effort to chisel our image into marble or granite, the monument will be a beautiful and lasting contribution to our eternal family circle.
To chip away at granite takes great strength and perseverance; one must take the tiniest slivers and be willing for the statue to look unfinished for a very long time. Keeping in mind the thought of the sculptor Michelangelo, it is not what is taken away, but that which remains that makes the statue beautiful.
Onlookers in our lives may stand back and say, "Look, I am finished with my clay statue; it is shiny and it is beautiful. Your rock has no shape. In fact I can see no changes in it since you brought it from the quarry. It is still rough and gray." Such criticisms may tempt us to trade the granite for softer clay, or to give up entirely, because of the contrast we seem to perceive between our own work and our neighbors' more visible results.
But we must look at that granite rock and the very small scratches we have made to see in it the image that it holds, continuing to chip away day by day, always letting the Lord guide our hand, being content to know that God can see the marks. Let critics enjoy their clay statues while they last.
It isn't a contest between this granite sculpture and the neighbors' statues of clay. It is only a matter of continuing to make an effort against the very resistant granite. When at last we have done all it is possible for us to do, and the time comes to face our Lord will take the chisel from our hand to finish the sculpture in the form we envisioned together before the world began.