Let us make man in our image. Genesis 1:26

This piece offers not a creation ex nihilo, but a creation in process. The fragmented, wood-like blocks are both the raw material of mortality and the latent structure of holiness. Derived from the rough-hewn beams of a carpenter, each block signifies a trial, a tender mercy, an affliction, a deliverance. None are random. All are layered in their season with purposeful care.

Some blocks float, suspended—not yet fitted into the soul’s architecture. This liminality underscores the doctrine of progression. Sanctification, like sculpture, is iterative and often invisible.

The sculpting hands are absent from view yet omnipresent in intention—ministering angels laboring under sacred commission. They watch. They anticipate. They persuade. They shift the fabric of history—to shield from danger, to reroute temptation, to preserve life. They retreat when barred by sin, but never abandon. Unrelenting, they mold the soul toward godliness—one hardship, one kindness at a time.

Scattered at the base lie blocks that never found their place—unmet efforts, fractured covenants, painful choices. They are the remnants of agency: the pieces the Creator would have fit into place, had we allowed it. Each an invitation deferred, a shaping moment left unrealized.

But even here there is no despair. The figure’s bowed head, drawn downward in quiet submission, offers the interpretive key: the soul is teachable. It has not turned away. It waits to be completed. It is the posture of one who yields to the Master potter, trusting that what remains incomplete may yet be made divine.