Last night the kids and I stopped by the lake to see an amazing sunset. In all my years of taking pictures of sunrises and sunsets I have never seen anything like it. It didn’t take long and people pulled up to take shots of this amazing sight. However beautiful this sunset was, it cannot compare to the beauty of mankind.
The following poem stirred in my heart this weekend after learning more about and listening to Martin Schleske. This luthier (violin maker) from Germany has touched many lives, not only with his craft of making violins, but through his book, which he wrote from notes taken during the process of building his violins.
Skilled is Your craftsmanship – Your art
With which You hone each part of man
As instruments we’re set apart
Play songs that through the ages span.
Your hand holds tight while chisel cuts
The flaws the world has left within;
You carve Your thoughts in those who trust
The Carpenter to take their sin.
With gentle bow-stroke You can hear
The sound of each vibrating string;
You bend and press Your holy ear
Into the heart and hear it sing.
In ways that I will never know
You craft this instrument of man;
With care design his song to grow
Into Your tune – Your sovereign plan.
~
Psalm 139:13-18
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
~
(Photos and poem by Heidi Viars, 2019)
Heidi Viars 
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