Respect the Rust Faith

Written By:  Erin Pearson @ Hewn Tree Scribe

It was a typical morning and I was in my car listening to My Bridge Radio sitting at the stoplight turning from E Ave onto 25th St. I felt I was in a hurry this morning, for no apparent reason other  than I couldn’t seem to get myself in gear. My finger continued to tap on the steering wheel as I watched the passing traffic until it was my turn to go. The traffic slowed and the time was near for me to be turning on my way, but I was stopped in my tracks. An old tow truck was hauling a a flat bed trailer. On top of a trailer teetered an old 1950’s pickup, rusted through and bearing only a slight resemblance of the blue hue it once shimmered with.

Time slowed, the tow truck seemed stalled in the passing lane under the yellow light that was gleaming above it. The truck it hauled peered back at me, into my soul and I could swear that I could see a tear leaking from its windshield. I heard a squeaky voice whisper “come and find me” and each second seemed like a lifetime and my heart leaped into my throat.

Sure the color was nearly gone, the rust had eaten through the metal and the glass was shattered. The bumper bounced as the tow truck chugged through the intersection and took my dream truck away. I had to hold myself back from watching the truck go past. I yearned to reach out. I wanted to save the truck from the salvage yard, to wrap it in new paint and chrome, to restore its beauty and its functionality once more. To retain it, in my home, in a place of honor, as an heirloom respected and passed down for generations.

But it was not to be.

The day crept on and still the image of the old rusty truck stuck with me. I imagined it sitting there in the local scrap yard, chugging its little heart out to the oldies playing on his favorite AM station as he bounced down the narrow dirt pathways through the junk piles.

I saw the gold in the beautiful lines remaining in the old and tattered truck. I saw what it could become, and how I could mold it with my hands and make it beautiful again, and restore it into where it could be respected and renewed. To a Christian, this is a resounding familiarity.

God sees the gold in me.

I learned this week that people will try to change everything around us, to alter the world to their perception of right. We get sanded down, the windows get broken and shattered, the lights dim and the chrome fades with the abrasive world we live in. But we can’t forget that God still sees us shining and new, the littlest speck he knew in the womb, and we will never tarnish that, as long as we keep Him where he belongs; always in the forefront.

My faith is not rusty, but I do have a rusty faith.