Shaping Hearts

Snick.  A small piece of wire goes flying across the dinner table onto the floor.  Scrabbling, I grab the silver wire before my cats can get to it.  Got it!  Holding up my prize, I crawl back to my chair.  Sitting down, I dig through my pile of pliers.  Finding my handy round-nose plier, I pinch the wire end.  With a firm twist of my wrist I form a curve.  Hmmmm, a little more curve needed.  There!  Carefully, I grab the wire and switch sides to curve the other end.  Let’s see, a little less curve here.  Done.

Dig.  Shuffle.  Shifting different pliers to one side, I finally find two of my favorite pliers.  Grabbing one plier in each hand, I pick up the tiny piece of silver.  Gently, I pinch the small silver wire between the arching curves.  With a deft twist of my wrist, I kink the wire so that the curving ends touch to form a heart.  Okay, the easy part’s done.

Shuffling through my messy pile of tools, I unearth a shiny flat keychain.  I didn’t want to spend money to buy a polished stainless steel anvil for hammering my silver, so I prayed for God to provide one.  While doing a little clean-up, I find my old Celica keychain near the front door.  Smooth, with a bright polished mirror-like finish and harder than a rock, this keychain makes the perfect anvil. *wide grin*

Laying my self-declared anvil on a chair, I carefully position the heart-shaped wire right in the center.  Even more gently, I cover the heart with my other self-proclaimed anvil, a pair of shiny stainless steel scissors.  Do you see a theme in my tools yet?  *smirk*

Slowly, I reach my right hand upwards.  Patting around, I wrap my fingers around a large wooden handle.  Thump.  The heart goes flying.  Laying the heavy metal mallet back onto the table, I chase after the skittering heart.  Now little heart, into the fire!  A bit of protective flux, a fragment of silver solder, my sister’s crème brulee torch… let’s attach this little heart to a 24 gauge silver wire.

After a the fire, the silver goes into the water to cool-off, acid to clean up any oxidization, rinsed off and hand-burnished using my handy steel scissors for a bright shine.  What’s all this work for?  A single, gently curved wire with a heart attached for an order of dangling teal fish earrings.  =D

This is the start of my new jewelry hobby and business.  Well, it’s not quite a regular business because I don't intend to set prices that will make me much money.  I want to be a good steward of the money I spend to make these silver items, but my main intention isn’t to make a profit.  If my intention really was to make money, I wouldn’t spend so much time on tiny details many people miss seeing or may not even appreciate.  I want each piece of jewelry I make to be a reflection of God’s many blessings in my life, both the easily noticeable and the easily ignored aspects.  The entire creation comes together to make the item what it is… just like my life, in all its parts both good and bad, makes me who and what I am today.

At the begining of my jewelry-making “business,” I invested quite a bit of money into buying silver and real gemstone beads.  For the longest time, I only received one sale by a friend on Etsy.  Inside, I felt scared and more than a bit sad.  Is my stuff not good enough?  It’s not like Noel and I are working… in fact, I’m on disability and Noel just lost his job.  Then there’s me, spending a large chunk of money.  So I prayed: “Father God, thank you for providing money and Noel’s support where I can step blindly out into making real silver jewelry.  But Lord, there’s a lot of money invested into this hobby of mine and nothing’s really selling.  Father, my intention is to use these jewelry pieces I create to share my story about your presence in my life.  I’m not sure how this will all work out, but keep my heart focus not on money, not on sales, but on you.  However, Lord, it’d be great to make back some of the money I already spent!”

In the 24 hours following this prayer, my sister displayed my earrings and bracelets at her workplace.  During that time, I received text after text from my sister requesting custom-made pieces: fish earring in this other color, an anklet with the orange and freshwater pearl as a charm, a kid’s bangle with angel charm, the teal fish earrings, take the blue fish earrings off etsy… on and on the orders rolled in until I prayed: “God, stop! I need time to catch up to all these incoming orders.  I appreciate the business, but I need a little time to organize all the information.  Help me manage my time and my resources to create these orders so that the individuals who ordered jewelry from me may be honored with my best work.  Lord, financially, I’m not out of the red yet, but please give me some space to finish this batch of jewelry first.”

Like I prayed, God answered. No additional orders arrived.

“Hey God, I’m ready again! I really want to buy a tumbler to polish my jewelry so I don't have to spend hours rubbing silver, I rather spend the time creating new stuff and trying new ideas.  I’d also love to buy a flex shaft rotary tool with a pedal to really smooth-out those hard-to-reach areas as I progress to making rings, bracelets and pendants.  But I want to buy these items out of the profits from selling these jewelry pieces.  I want to honor Noel by not spending money we don’t have.  I want to stop investing more of our household finances into my hobby.  Lord, first step, can you please give me wisdom in what beads and colors I really need to buy and prevent me from buying in excess?  Also, please provide a couple more sales to break even with the money I’ve invested into the silver.  I don’t know where or how I’m going to sell these earrings, but Lord, I leave the details in your hands.  The jewelry isn’t posted online so I don’t know what you will do or how these earrings will be sold, but I place the finances and this business into your hands.”

Two days later, a friend drops by.  Not knowing my prayer request, she buys 3 of my earrings and orders a fourth.  The amount?  Just enough to break even with the money I’ve spent on silver and beads since the start of this year.  I mean _perfectly_ even.  What can I say to that?  Is this by chance?  Your choice… but stuff like this happens over and over and over so many times in regards to my jewelry sales that I cannot say it’s coincidence.

I pray. 

God answers.

I am humbled by God’s power so clearly portrayed.  I can’t even close my eyes and deny the timing between each prayer and the exact outcome.

Lord, you’ve blessed me so much!  Even before my earrings are placed online, you sell them for me.  Over half of my creations never even get their picture taken for posting purposes!  I’m awed by your power and your presence so clearly demonstrated these past few weeks.  Every time I ask for sales to cover a certain cost of material, within the week, the exact amount is covered.  Over and over and over again, Father God, you show me your hand at work. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, I will continue to dedicate the work of my hands into yours Lord.  Help me not to focus on money or be jealous over all the cool creations out there or that others can successfully sell online.  Lord, you are the ultimate creator and everything pales compared to your handiwork.  I believe you’ve created me for a specific purpose… and that even my jewelry business has a purpose in your kingdom.  May my actions, my words, my thoughts, my heart in all aspects bring you glory and honor and praise.  Amen.

As I continue walking through this jewelry-making hobby, I can understand a little bit more about God, not just as my lord, but as a creator.  I look at the stuff I make and can say "it is good."

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)