“And provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them 

Consider an ordinary wooden packing pallet once used for the important service of carrying heavy loads. It reaches its breaking point, it is considered no longer useful, and it is tossed to the trash.

 Lee McInnis, master craftsman, sees this “trash” and is drawn to rescue it for its potential.  The slats are reclaimed.  Nails are pulled out and the slats are sanded.  They are then glued together.   This is when I get to have them!  Incredible boards of many different hardwoods.  I love being able to draw and then cut out crosses of my original designs.

 The wood becomes a symbol of God’s love for us. Its value has been reclaimed!  God takes us, broken and messed up, rejected and belonging nowhere, and He makes us His own.  In this wood, some will see scars and flaws deserving to be cast aside, others will see the art of God. Your hearts may be moved to reach out and reclaim what is there…just as God reclaims our lives.

 The finished crosses are immersed in orange oil to bring out the beauty and character of the wood… The Anointed One anoints His beloved with the oil of joy, taking away our sadness. He fills us with His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who brings us comfort and peace and joy until it not only heals our pain, but overflows with healing toward others.  God immerses us in His loving nourishment to bring out the beauty and character of our identity in Him. 

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There is a battle going on in my head.  It is the voice of the Holy Spirit vs. the devil.  I hear God so clearly sometimes and focus as hard as I can on Him.  Then there is the NOISE of doubt, condemnation, second guessing, quitting, failing, etc.  I hate those sounds.

In my show preparation today,  I will be listening to my christian music.  The beautiful psalms that touch my heart so sweetly.  I know the music will win over the noise.  Pray for me this week.  Please.  I consider myself to be a strong  Christian, but I feel weak right now.  I just need a little help carrying me through to the weekend!

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I am so excited about the new reclaimed wood that we are using to make Clark Crosses!  I thought a lot about staining this wood because I was worried that all the different types of wood would be too distracting from the designs.  Unfortunately, every stain I used seemed a failure.  It wasn’t right.  It covered the natural graining and character of the woods.  Right after we dropped our kids off at school,  I was discussing this with my dear friend, Allison, in my workshop.  She said, matter of factly, why don’t you just orange oil the crosses like you have always done.  I was game and we dipped one in the oil and it was BEAUTIFUL! ! !  This was the obvious answer and I was so thankful for Allison’s suggestion.

Now I sure have a lot of work to do to get these new crosses up on the website.  The lesson learned here is to listen to others even when they have no expertise.  You never know when God might use somebody!

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I received the following email and wanted to share it with you. This is just one reason I do what I do.

Hi Julie!

I saw your cross key chain on a friend’s FB page and followed the links. My wonderful husband’s faith had been wavering after a loss of one of his “kids.” You see he is a drug and alcohol counselor and has been for 35 years. He is the best in this area and has devoted his life to it. He feels it is his calling.

A few months ago, one of his success stories, went into the Air Force and was doing so well. She came home before going to her first assignment and he was thrilled when she and her Mom paid him a surprise visit. He came home that night to tell me how wonderful Michelle was doing and how happy he was for both her and her family.

The next morning at 8 am her Mother called to tell Ken that she had found Michelle dead on the floor next to her bed and a bag of drugs. No note. Her best friend told her Mom later that day that she had told her that she wanted to get high one more time before she went away. Her friend tried to talk her out of it and thought she had.

My husband has lost other “kids” along the way, but thank God, very few. Each time it takes it’s toll on him but he deals with it and his faith has always been there to move him forward. This time he couldn’t get past Michelle’s passing.

Then this past weekend he went on a retreat and had a renewal of his relationship with God and Jesus. He is at peace again and he continues to work tirelessly with his clients.

I saw the key chain you had up and I would really love to be able to get one for him to carry with him each day. Is this possible?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I look forward to hearing from you.

Blessings,  Connie

And now for a follow up!  I love this part!

Hi Julie!

Ken was so thrilled when he got the cross.  It was funny because he brought in the mail and looked at the return address…felt the envelope…said I don’t know this person….and then said, as I kept quiet…well, should I open it? Of course, I said! 

When he opened it and was so impressed with the words on the cross, he looked at me and said…but I really don’t know who this is from.  I do, I answered, I do.

The rest of the story is that he then put it right on his keychain and friended you.

Thank you so much!

Hugs,
Connie

 cross wall decor, crosses wooden

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I was grappling with the fact that even though God had blessed me with the wooden ornaments and crosses, I was tired of making them. As an artist, I was bored! I sat in front of my computer one night after my boys had gone to bed and began praying. I needed something new to make. God, don’t make me cut anymore 4 inch crosses! I have been doing basically the same thing for 4 years now! All I heard was silence. Time for bed.

I woke up as usual the following morning and went about my morning activity of getting my boys up and dressed and fed. Did some never ending laundry, feed the dogs, etc. Then I turned the computer on. Something was terribly wrong with the screen. It was blue! The computer wouldn’t respond to any of the buttons I pushed! I called my husband at work and told him the situation. BAD news is all I heard.  The computer hard drive had crashed and I lost all my designs. All my work that I had gathered for the past 5 years was gone! All my designs for crosses!

In confusion I called out to God! “ What does this mean?! Am I to quit cutting crosses and focus on the new little baby that would be coming the next Summer or WHAT?” This was scary because I knew that God had responded to my prayer in a very noticeable way, but I didn’t understand what He was saying with this turn of events.

In January of 2002 I was singing in the choir at St. George’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans. We sang this accapella version of “Alleluia” that soothed me to my soul. I was motivated to design something very new for me. I remember how excited I was to show my incredible choir director, David Kemp, the new cross! I even gave it to him. It was because of that song that he taught us that I came up with this cross design!

By the end of the month, God had blessed me with 8 new designs. Most of which, I still cut today! After a couple of years listening to my mom tell me that I should put bible verses with my cross designs I finally did it. I started with the first cross God gave me, the Alleluia Cross. I looked up the definition of the word and it was “Praise the Lord”. God was telling me that from the beginning of these crosses I was to always give Him the praise and glory for all He has given me.  ”Praise the Lord, I tell myself, with my whole heart, I praise his holy name.”  Psalm 103:1  

He never ceases to amaze me. It was only natural that I would start a new series of large wall crosses with one called “Alleluia Cross”.

And the designs have never stopped coming to me. Time to stop writing for now. I can’t wait to tell you about the Joy Cross. It was the 3^rd design that He gave me in 2002. Until then, I can’t express to you how utterly important it is to be at peace in your heart. No matter what is going on around you in this world, focus on the peace that our Heavenly Father gives each and everyone of us.

 Come visit me at www.facebook.com/julieclarkcrosses and be my friend on Facebook at www.facebook.com/clarkcrosses. 

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We moved to Pascagoula, Mississippi in 1994. As a young mother to two little boys with a Navy husband at sea for 6 months at a time, we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on extra stuff. One year I was setting up our Christmas tree and saw that I had very few ornaments. I decided to try out our scroll saw and cut some out of wood. I remembered how my mom had painted some wonderful wooden ornaments for our tree when I was a little girl. It was fun to see my tree more appropriately dressed!

 An ornament exchange party was scheduled with the women of my church at this time and I brought one of my ornaments. It was a leaf with three sections and I cut some veins in it and added a little cross at the top. It had an angelic feeling to it and represented the Trinity. My church friends loved it and wanted to see more! In the following couple of weeks, I quickly made as many ornaments as I could and earned $200! It was an easy decision to purchase a new scroll saw! I chose a yellow Dewalt 788 and boy was it beautiful and quiet! I could cut much faster and better on it because it didn’t vibrate near as much as the table top Delta scroll saw!

There were many lonely times because I was in a town without family and my husband was at sea often. The crosses became a way for me to feed my soul and creativity. I have always said that I have to be creative like I have to breath! As the boys would play in the yard or on the driveway, I could be in our workshop cutting crosses. In the evenings when they were in bed, I would sit in front of the television and sand the little burs off the back of the crosses and put screw eyes in the top with a bit of jute twine so the ornament could be hung on a tree.

I felt so blessed that God would give me a way to not only earn a little extra money as a stay at home mom, but He gave me a way to honor Him by making two and four inch crosses. I grew closer to Him daily as I sought out new cross shapes and learned the meaning behind all the variations of the cross.

It is hard to believe that it has been 14 years since those humble beginnings of my cross ministry. I have no idea how many ornaments I cut, but it sure was a lot! I stopped cutting them Christmas 2002 after four years of making them. This was the end of the ornaments but the beginning of Clark Crosses! And that is where I leave off for now, but the next chapter is amazing!

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