Building The Skateboard
REDEEM: To compensate or make amends for the faults or bad aspects of something or someone. To buy back.
I had this pallet lying around my house for some time. It had been used and discarded. It had no purpose anymore, so I decided to give it a new purpose. I pulled it apart, piece by piece, and discarded the nails. Although the nails left scars, the board still had a new purpose. Those scars would not prevent it from being used.
Slowly the pallet wood began a radical transformation. I chose two of the planks and cut them down the the same width. This process cleaned the sides of each plank, getting them ready to be glued and clamped to one another. Many people don’t know the power of wood glue. You might think that this seem would be the weakest part of the board, but not in my experience. When stressed the wood may break, but not in the place where the seam is. Of course, this all assumes that the glue seam is done right — clean flat and unsealed.
Once the planks had finished glueing (at least 2 hours) I removed the clamps and cut a thick block for the tail and a narrower block for the nose. I then glued and clamped those blocks onto the top of the newly seamed together planks. After these dried in a few hours, I raised the blade on the table saw, adjusted its angle, and cut the top and the bottom of the nose and the tale to form the proper shape.
I drew the rounded edges that I wanted to see on the board and cut them out with a jig saw. I then sanded minimally, as I wanted the redemption story of the pallet wood to be seen through. Also, I wanted the rough wood on top to function as grip tape. A stencil, paint, and polyurethane were used to finish the bottom of the board. For the next several days, my children proceeded to test the board’s rigidity to the best of their ability, propping it up against couches and performing their most courageous parkour moves off of it.
From a lonely broken and scarred pallet to a skateboard deck sent to Braille Skateboarding! This pallet has made a miraculous transformation. But, just as this board had no power to change itself into something else or even give itself a new purpose, you and I are like hopeless broken and lonely pallets without a purpose. The redemption story of this board, however, is not beyond reach for each of us.
A purpose – an original purpose – has been woven into each one of us by the One who created us. And although we may have strayed from that and find ourselves alone, broken and abandoned, REDEMPTION is offered to us. Your Creator and mine has extended His gracious hand to us, by allowing Jesus to take our shame and punishment. In exchange we are offered a place with Him as sons and daughters of the king. I don’t know where you are, but God does, and He’s inviting you to surrender yourself to an awesome transformation! He has a purpose for you! A plan! Will you let Him make you new?
“For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written: Everyone who does not continue doing everything written in the book of the law is cursed. Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. … Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed. The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.” – Galatians 3:10-11 & 13-14