Almost on a daily basis in my work at The Karat Patch in Big Spring, Texas people bring in old broken-down jewelry and want me to create a new piece of jewelry out of it. This usually involves making a sketch, reproducing that sketch in a wax model, taking all that broken-down jewelry apart, setting up the wax model in a plaster (called investment) flask in preparation for casting, placing the wax model plaster flask into the kiln for burn-out (the wax model is burned away in this step, hence the name “lost wax process” of casting), melting down the old gold (or other metal) in a crucible and centrifugally casting it into the plaster flask form where the wax model has been burned out, breaking the hardened casting out of the plaster flask, finishing and polishing the new piece, setting the stones, more polishing and cleaning and finally, delivery to the customer of a brand new product. As you can see it can be quite a process.
Nearly every time I begin this process, and every time I get to the casting portion (which will be the focus of this series), I think about how Jesus can change people. I think about how God can use things going on around us to help make us into better people.
Just as a customer comes to me to make a new piece of jewelry out of their broken-down junk, we can come to Jesus to make a new person out of a broken-down person.
Sometimes when people bring in their broken–down junk for me to make something new, it’s hard to see what can be done with all of it to make it look beautiful. It’s hard to see its’ full potential. But Jesus can look at every person and see them at their full potential and at their very finest.
When I’m sketching for a potential client, and working out what the finished product might look like, there are a lot of unknowns and particulars that sometimes reveal themselves only at the very end of the job. And sometimes the job turns out a little differently than first thought.
God on the other hand knows exactly what a person is going to look like when He gets done with them…..they’re going to look like Jesus.
I’ve been told that Rev. Billy Graham’s wife once said that she wanted her gravestone to read: “Thank you for your patience……construction now complete. “
The process of creating a new piece of jewelry from old can be quite involved, and so can the process of changing from the old person to the new. I’ll write a bit more on this as the series continues. I believe as this series about jewelry casting unfolds you will be able to see the similarities in the two processes just as I do when I start making something new from something old.
NEXT POST: JEWELRY CASTING AND THE CREATOR - PART TWO: THE PROCESS
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