Wax

Wow! A new blog format. I feel my posting may be a little different until I get used to my new layout. So I apologize in advance for any posts that look less asthetically pleasing than my previous.

It's that time of year. Finals week. As painful as it is I'm excited to go home for the summer and enjoy some sunshine rather than all this Oregon rain.

So my post today was all thanks to the fact that I wanted to play with my paraffin bath one last time before putting it away to come home. It was a long Saturday filled with packing and procrastination in studying. I decided at the end it would be nice to give my hands a special treat and use my paraffin bath. For those of you who don't know a paraffin bath is a tub full of hot scented wax. The tub heats up the wax, melting it down. Some of my friends have thought I'm waxing my hands like some people wax their legs. The wax of the paraffin does not pull hair off. Instead it is left on for about fifteen minutes, heating and relaxing the joints and also making the skin softer. It's a lovely treatment, one of the perfect things for a tired college student to relax with.



While it was heating I talked with a friend about some different things. Our conversation ranged in topic, but we talked a good bit about stress and other things going on in our lives before moving on to a bit more spiritual level. This friend has had several hard things this year, and I've been glad that I can try to be a good friend and help her through. Sometimes I've failed her, but I know other times she's been glad to have me near and I have often felt the same.

When we finished our conversation I immediately began using the wax. I sat there for fifteen minutes just letting the warm material relax my joints and ease away my tension. After the time was up I peeled the wax off and rolled it into a ball.

My laptop broke on Thursday so I have been rather bored lately (though I still can't motivate myself to study as much as I probably should). So that evening as I turned off my paraffin bath I somehow got the idea to play with the wax. I dipped a finger or two in and gently pulled them out, rubbing the cooling wax between my fingers. When I got tired of that I suddenly turned to the piece of wax that was left over from my hands. I stared at it and realized it would make the perfect medium.







   

I took the ball and without even thinking began to form a person. As I worked I decided to make a girl, so I thinned the waist and increased the hips. I gently started forming more chest and longer hair.

It was hard work. I had no idea wax was so hard to work, but as I tried to form her I was beginning to realize it wasn't as easy as I had thought. As I squished out the legs I would mess up the body. As I turned my attention to the arms the legs would cool enough that they became more difficult to work. The head was lumpy and deformed and no matter how much I tried the body just would not appear in a nice proportion.

As I worked the wax I suddenly thought of something. One of my favorite verses is Ephesians 2:10  "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."

For those of you who haven't seen it, this video is a must see. It's by the skit guys who are hilarious, but also are very meaningful in what they present. It's all about Ephesians 2:10.

  

God tells us he's our masterpiece, but the thing we forget is that God is still forming us, and the process of forming isn't easy. A lot of people use clay when they talk about this passage, but in a lot of ways I think of wax. Because the thing about wax is it takes the same amount of work that clay does, but it also takes heat. 

A lot of times we think that the life of a Christian will be easy. But the thing is that in becoming like Christians there are often more struggles. We face persecution, something that never was a problem before. And with that we face the fact that God needs to make us more like Him. He needs to shape and form us, and the methods He uses are often uncomfortable. We get put into the heat to make us more moldable, and then we get twisted and squeezed until at last our shape matches what God wants from us. And even if he shapes one part, sometimes another falls out of shape in the process, causing more work to be needed in that other area.

My wax girl sits on my shelf now as a reminder to me that I am God's masterpiece, but that I am also a work in progress. Though not perfect the little figurine is ready to be molded to perfection by the master artist. As I sit here I think about that. I am made of wax. I will be put through heat and discomfort, but through that pain I will eventually become God's beautiful perfect workmanship.