Another sword, another marker

"This blade forged in peace

Never taste of blood 

Or drawn in anger,

Or the quiver of fear as the enemy rushes,

Instead to remind, of those blades that have, 

so this one might not." *

This weekend Lisa and I had a couple over to our place. We don't get too many visitors to our apartment as we are in the souther-central part of Houston and most of them either reside in the east or in the north. Lisa helped "proctor" a test for her friend and her husband and I started out just chatting and then the chatting turned into a project.

The sword that Lisa had gotten me for Christmas (careful, it's sharp...) was sitting in the corner of our bedroom gathering dust. I have several of my swords mounted up on a rack in our bedroom (not above the bed) but the rack was full and this was the most... fully functional, sword I owned so I wanted to display it (along with it's sheath) in a more predominate way. I had purchased a few sword hangers a while back and was currently only using one of them, but they required either mounting screws in drywall or finding a stud. A project I would normally be fine handling on my own, but was honestly too much work for myself these days. So as he was over I decided to take advantage of the situation and relative ease of the project to get the sword displayed.

He helped to find studs (which didn't actually end up being where the stud finder said they were... REALLY strange things seem to happen when I try and hang things above a fireplace...) and do the drilling and the mounting of the magnet, also making sure it was level. Then we got the sheath up with a few hooks I had purchased and got everything evened out. It came out looking pretty great and you can't really tell how the sword is mounted at all. (A big magnet holds it to the wall... they claim it can support 200lbs, but I don't know... it's strong, but 200 lbs is a lot of weight, especially for a wall to carry.)

My sword collection represents for me a lot of different "life stages" as a friend of mine once put it. The most recent addition is one I have been wanting for a while (It's a replica of the Black Prince's sword), and represents for me, the current battle I am dealing with with cancer. I guess it was only fitting that I had a friend help me to mount it for display as my friends have helped me so much through this whole ordeal and supported Lisa and I through the dark times and well as the bright times. Now the blade sits above the mantle, over the TV, where I can see it on a daily basis and be reminded of God's faithfulness to us through cancer and how he supplies for us by and through friends.

Thank you all for being a part of this for any role you have played. From remembering us in prayer (which is huge) to supporting us financially, to visiting us when and how you can. Thank you.

* I added this little... Prayer? A day or so after I originally wrote this post as I was thinking about the use of swords both then and now.

~B.
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