Electric welding makes a light like lightning. You have to wear a protective helmet to keep from damaging your eyes. But when my dad was welding, it would light up the shop, and I would run to see what he was doing. He would stop and make me put on a welding helmet, which fit over my head like a trash can, but I wanted to watch everything he was doing. After awhile he would take my hand in his and guide the welding rod to help me get a feel for it. I loved watching the two pieces of metal fusing together in the intense heat.Eventually he let me weld small projects by myself, and by the time I was entering high school, I knew I wanted to become a welder. But welding occasionally in my dad’s construction shop and actually taking classes to become a certified welder turned out to be very different experiences! Every time we welded anything in class, the weld had to "survive" a stress test. As students we would fasten the welded metal into clamps that would pull the pieces in opposite directions with amazing force. The best welds held even if the force tore the metal apart.
This test was critical to demonstrate the integrity of the weld. Definitions of "integrity" include, "trustworthiness, wholeness, completeness, incorruptibility, uprightness, wholeness, soundness." The whole idea is to test and see if the weld will hold under pressure. There is no way to trust the integrity unless you test it.
Integrity requires that we undergo testing. Hardships not only give us the opportunity to develop integrity, but it also puts us through the paces. What can we handle? How much are we willing to bear? Can others depend on us to hold up under pressure?
This 40-Day Journey Toward a Life of Active Compassion, and especially the voucher component, is giving us an excellent opportunity to test our integrity and develop it to deeper levels. What are some challenges of integrity you’ve faced so far on this journey? Where do you need God to do some repair work?
- Don McLaughlin
