Reclaimed Wood

I enjoy woodworking, but the wood to woodwork is expensive. Fortunately, pallet wood is in vogue for now. I have made chairs, cradles, and bowls out of reclaimed pallet wood. My source is a metal stamping factory that discards their hardwood pallets. The pallets have packaging staples and spiral nails that are hard to get out. But for the patient scavenger (yours truly), the wood can be beautiful. I have found red oak, white oak, maple, poplar, ash, and mahogany. So, last week, I was pulling out the metal and there was a coffee-like smell that aroused my curiosity. I watch Phil Anderson’s youtube channel and in one episode, he turned a bowl from a coffee tree. I was considering that my reclaimed wood might be from this mysterious coffee tree. But then I noticed that I had been collecting the staples and nails in an old Dunkin’ Donuts coffee can. Oops. Have you ever been mistaken in life? Years ago, I was walking from school to home to pick up some papers that I had forgotten. I was carrying a white stick pen that didn’t have a cap on it. I needed to text my wife, but I couldn’t put the pen in my pocket, so I put the pen in my mouth to hold it. A student saw me from a distance and thought, “Mr. Whitely has a cigarette in his mouth!” The truth was only discovered years later when the now former student brought it up. King David was familiar with misunderstandings. He said in Psalm 56:5, “Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.” Hey, misunderstandings will happen. Just be ready to set things straight. And … sometimes it will be you that is doing the misunderstanding. And when it is, be quick to make things right.