An old Saw Horse

There's an image I have in my head from the years of helping my dad in his cabinetry shop.  In the spray room, we would work on the cabinets, buffing, staining, wiping with tack clothes, painting, whatever needed to be done to help transform raw wood into stunningly beautiful custom designed cabinets. Dad would have everything up on saw horses. Those saw horses had layer after layer of paints, many colors of stains, and glue.  They were bumpy, uneven, and I had no idea what they had originally looked like.  But they were great tools, and we put them to continual use. 
I am an old saw horse.  Or maybe a young saw horse on my the way to being an old well used saw horse.  My mom gave me a book for Christmas called "Loving the Little Years: Mothering in the Trenches."  In one chapter author Rachel Jankovic writes about our bodies being tools, not treasures.  That hit home. I want to look pretty, have hands that are not cracked and nails that are manicured, wear stylish clothes, and not have a belly that sags when I ignore it.  I want to have time to put make-up on and style my hair.  Jankovic put my thoughts to words when she wrote about mothers resenting the sacrifices children require, or take offense at the things they do to our bodies by their mere existence.  But I am not a treasure, I am a tool!  God did not create me to put myself up on a shelf and stay a beautiful 18 year old forever.  I am to be used. "Mothering uses your body in the way that God designed it to be used.  Those are the right kind of damages... any wear and tear that [your body] shows is simply the sign of a well-used tool." (p. 58-59)  In mothering out bodies are "undone of the behalf of another."  What a way to live out Christ to ourselves and those around us!  Christ was undone infinitely more than we ever could be, so that we might live.  I will choose to put Christ in front of my eyes when I see my stretch marks, the bags under my eyes, my fingers raisined up from loads of dishes.

It would have looked absolutely crazy to see my dad bent over an old saw horse, chipping off the paint, sanding it smooth, painting it a pretty color, then hanging it on the wall.  He always took good care of his tools, but for the purpose of keeping them usable, not showing them off. I want to be a rough well used saw horse, totally worn out by the time I die, with a legacy of having been used for the production of many beautiful "cabinets," and with them prove the amazing skill and vision of the Master Cabinet Maker.