The Hammering Sound of Hope

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The front wall of our church is constructed entirely of wooden boards and our shadows are cast on the reclaimed wood as the music starts. The rough planks are hammered together with nails.

Some of the boards are split right down the middle and many have dark, raised knots in the grain. There are twisted places that tell stories I wish I knew. Each plank is rough and was once discarded. I know that it is only the nails that keep them from falling completely apart. It’s the nails that connect each to create a beautiful mosaic. Somehow the jagged places look strong and beautiful together.

The light dances on the wood as we sing. Someone in the front row raises a hand, and it’s shadow is cast on the grain.

The rustic wall reminds me that our stories are overlapping and I remember once again that it is only reclaimed wood and nails that keep us all together.

Something about the wood and the words we are singing and the nails makes me close my eyes. I think about my history with wood. And my hometown. And the Maple trees.  I think about the sound of the sap buckets as they were hammered into the bark in my front yard when I was a child. Up north in that snowy Ohio town, the hammering of the buckets on the Maples was the first sign of spring. The buckets would collect the sap that would become syrup, and we could hardly wait for that sweetness after such a long winter. The sap was down in the roots of that tree, we just couldn’t see it yet.

The fluctuating temperatures that felt like confusion to us was a recipe.

A recipe for hope.

Because all the things unseen in the wood were working together to create something that deserved celebration.

So to me, the tapping sound of the nails into that wood, it always sounded a bit like the hammering of hope, right there with snow piled up too high.

Spring was sure to come after the scars and metal were placed on the trees.

I open my eyes and the shadows are still there on the wood at the front of the church.

We sing “He has called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

I focus on the nails. The ones that keep everything in place.

Because even though I’ve tried hard to paint Easter to be about pretty flowers and dresses and all things new…

 Easter began with nails on slivered wood.
I walk out into the sunshine and I can almost hear the hammering sound of hope.

P.S. I’m over at MakesYouMOM.com this week, too. A few words about the dandelion moments of motherhood found here.