i might always be an average woodworker, but let’s write “workermans” on our toolboxes

I am reading Jacob’s Gift to my kids for their bedtime story. It is a story set in biblical times about a boy named Jacob who is quite good at woodworking and gets lost in the craft. A Rabbi tells Jacob, “God has given you the gift of woodworking. What is difficult for many is easy for you. Surely, you’ve noticed.”

What is difficult for many is easy for you. When it comes to woodworking, I have always wanted to be like Jacob. But when I consider my ways, how I’ve taken months and months to make picture frames for my wife, but have not even one finished one. How I count my measuring tape like a fifth grader, notch by notch. How, when envisioning the process of making a piece, I turn it over and over again in my mind, not because I am considering between two genius options, but because I just can’t put together even the simplest plan.

They say not to compare, but surely there are times when it is good to do just that. If I’m not Jacob, I better stop expecting myself to be.

And then this grounding thought comes to mind: Maybe I’ll always be an average woodworker who struggles to make basic things.

What is the place of average gifts in the world?

What do you do when you want to be great at something, and all you can achieve after lots of effort is a makeshift trough?

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My son and I are about to leave the basement tool shed when he says, “Dad, I have a good idea. I want to show you something. What if we write ‘worker-mans’ on our toolboxes, and you can write DAD above yours and I can write my name above mine?”

He had put little pieces of white tape on our toolboxes, and on the wall above toolboxes. I grab a Sharpie from upstairs, and we write WORKERMAN on each of toolboxes. And then our names above our stations.

And now I know that this is what I do with my average gift. I keep using it, exactly as it has been given to me: no more, no less.