Episode 147 - Work in Progress

Recently at work I’ve been documenting some of the projects which have been made in our mechanical workshop. This comprises of taking the original design sketches, measuring up the completed projects and then using a computer to create a design so that an exact replica could be made if it needed to be. The difficulty with this is that the original sketches were only meant as a guide to help the mechanical engineer work out how he was going to make it and so interpreting it is a little like trying to decode a secret treasure map written in a foreign language. On top of this lots of the parts, faces and cuts on the finished projects are not easily accessible once it’s been assembled so making accurate measurements can be difficult and often end up being calculated guesses. I enjoy making technical drawings but for a short time I was getting frustrated as I seemed to be spending most of my time going backwards and redrawing things as I realised that the drawing wasn’t quite right as it wouldn’t work properly with the dimensions I had given it. It seemed like I spent more time erasing than I did drawing, like I was completely facing the wrong direction and making very little progress, but then I realised that I was looking at it all wrong.

Everything I deleted was part of my progress. I wasn’t just repeating the same thing over and over again, each time I was making something new. The changes were very small but significant. They took something that looked good but wasn’t quite right and brought it closer to being what it was meant to be. For me one of the joys of drawing is seeing something come in to being from nothing. Too see something new take form and grow into something. So to have something that looks complete and then spend more time editing it than I did drawing it in the first place for it to barely look any different was hugely disappointing. But when I began to look at it as taking something that was right on the surface but practically unusable, and then watch as it slowly became perfect and able to fulfil its purpose, I took a great sense of pleasure. Sometimes I feel like both I and my life are so close to being what they should be and yet I seem to spending most of my time fixing little mistakes that I make rather than actually doing anything seemingly useful. In those seasons I need to learn to watch with joy as my maker helps prepare me so I don’t just look useful, but am actually ready to fulfil His future purpose for me.