Austin’s Gift

I Want it My Way (Sermon) I Want It My Way – Part 2 (Sermon)

Austin’s Gift

A few months ago we drove to Wisconsin to visit our daughter Heidi, her husband Austin, and our sweet grand princess, Keira. Heidi was pregnant with a little boy due in October. Usually I enjoy conversation with Austin about his work. He is a police officer. He always has fascinating stories to tell about third-shift peace-keeping in his city.

Austin and Heidi live in a pleasant little lake community. Heidi has wonderful taste and creative ideas about redecorating and remodeling. Austin has the initiative and ability to make her dreams a reality. His dad, Eric and his brothers sometime come to help him. He remodeled their kitchen and built a beautiful “man cave” den/theater room in the lower floor of their split-level home. He also built her a beautiful dining room table from barn wood reclaimed from a barn near Oregon, Illinois. I asked him about the table and he described how he built it by hand. It is a beautiful work of art and a labor of love. Underneath the table he hand-lettered a plaque dedicating the table to Heidi and affirming his love for her.

I commented on it and told him of my great admiration for his work. He explained how he built it and how he finished it. I ran my hands over the smooth wood and admired his craftsmanship. During our conversation he offered to build me a writing desk of reclaimed barn wood for my new study—the room that had been the girls room in Granville Cottage. I weakly protested and then asked him how much he would charge for such a treasure. He quickly offered to built it for me as a gift. After a few more minutes of weak and insincere protestations I agreed to allow him to do it. Before I left I pressed some money into his hand to get more reclaimed barn-wood and we began to make plans for my new writing desk.

For months little Koen grew in Heidi’s womb and I cherished the picture working at my new writing desk. The week our grandson Koen was born the desk was finished. Lois, Holly, Hannah, and Hope drove to Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon to see the new baby. I preached twice on Sunday and by sunrise on Monday morning Hazard and I were a third of the way across the base of the “Mitten” in the Jeep. While the great city of Chicago was waking up and getting started on a new work week we were around the southern tip of Lake Michigan, through the city and up into southern Wisconsin.

Little Koen slept quietly in our arms as we passed him adoringly from Grandma to Hope to Holly to Hannah to Grandpa to mom and dad and back around again. The next day Hannah joined Hazard and I on the return trip. This time with my beautiful custom-built writing desk snugly in the back of my Jeep.

I had given Austin the measurements—the depth and width and exact height of the desk. It not only fit me and the room perfectly, it fit in my Jeep for the ride home without a half-inch to spare.

The desk is on two pedestal legs made of red oak—the original beams of the barn complete with the original pegs. The trestle cross piece between the pedestal-beams is secured with three of the four original pegs. Austin fabricated a forth peg, drilled the cross piece and glued it in place. There is not a metal fastener of any kind in the desk. It is all constructed pegs and glue, tongue and groove.

When I arrived in Riverview late that night, another of my fine sons-in-law, Dale, was there to help me move my new treasure into my study. (Dale and Austin grew up at Evangel and they were next-door neighbors). As we were moving the stout desk into the room I realized that it would outlast me. I was in possession of a genuine heirloom that I would never be willing to sell.

The first Stonebridge Newsletter was written from our up-stairs bedroom in the Pine Street Parsonage from Fremont, Michigan in fall of 2000. Since then I have written the Stonebridge from the Character Inn in Flint, Brook Place in Hinsdale, Illinois, the North Woods in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Camp Barakel, Lake Ann, Canada, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Sacramento, Mexico and probably a dozen other places. I have written from my inner study at Evangel in Taylor and from the table in Granville Cottage, but tonight, for the first time, I am writing from my new study at home in Granville Cottage in the Forest of Riverview. This room used to be Heidi and Hannah’s room. Heidi married and it became Hannah and Hope’s room. Hannah married and It became Hope’s room. Holly married and moved to Oregon and Hope took her room and left this room empty. Now it is my study at home. For the first time I am writing the Stonebridge from my study in Granville Cottage on my new writing desk.

The desk has a hand-lettered plaque attached to the underside. On it Austin wrote these beautiful words. “Hand-crafted for the man who gave me the greatest earthly gift one man could give another, his daughter, my wife, Heidi Hancock.” -Austin Hancock