THE PRODUCT
We are a family business based on faith. We do not mass produce. Every piece is cut, sanded, shaped, rubbed and finished by hand at our Palestine, Texas woodworking shop. Yes, they are MADE in Texas.
The woods are of the highest quality and are prepared to reveal the natural beauty of the piece. Each piece is unique and one-of-a-kind. We have been making The HoldingCrossTM the same way for over two decades now.
The pictures on our website show specific pieces of wood and designs that we have made. The piece of wood we use for your item may not look exactly like the pictures on the website. Each HoldingCrossTM is unique ... like us.
THE FINISH
We do not use any petroleum based product on our work. We use a specially formulated blend of natural penetrating oil derived from plants to seal the wood. Once this seal has penetrated the wood and cured, then we begin the buffing processes.
This process of penetrating and protecting the wood goes back several thousands of years, before man began trying to speed the process up. This is time consuming. This is costly. This is the only way we know that will provide protection for the wood and at the same time allow for the natural patina of the wood to gracefully age ... like us.
Man's ingenuity has created many synthetic finishes, including lacquer, shellac, and varnish all of which protect wood with a hard impervious layer. But these surface finishes prevent the development of patina, the lovely depth and tone that only natural aging can produce. Eventually synthetic finishes will break down and discolor, when that happens the entire surface must be removed by labor intensive stripping and sanding before another coat is applied.
We don't use any synthetic finishes!
Penetrating finishes formulated with linseed, soy or paraffin oils actually go into the wood and enhance its natural beauty, but these oils often dry incompletely and fail to form a hard and durable surface. Furthermore, they develop a gummy build-up when additional coats are applied. Linseed oil, the most commonly used penetrating finish, darkens and changes color with time and finally disintegrates.
We don't use linseed, soy or paraffin oils!
One of the reason our products look like they do is that they go through numerous steps from preparation of the raw boards to the final quality control review before it is offered to you. All of our wood products go through extensive sanding, buffing and polishing stages with a variety of grits and buffing compounds. These steps are time consuming and labor intensive and have taken years to perfect. Each piece is worked by our hands so it will look and feel good in yours. To maintain the look and feel of the wood, simply apply a fine furniture polish or furniture wax and follow the instructions of the manufacturer.
THE ORDER
This website offers many products that are available to ship right from our stock inventory. Some are custom ordered products.
If the product is a custom product, the website will provide you with a call for availability button. We will work with you to discern the actual cross you are ordering ...
Why Wood?
There are so many variables to using wood as the basis for the work and ministry we do. The world has en-cultured us to expect everything to be uniform and to be consistent. Plastics and resins and “man made” materials abound. Retail Stores and the web are full of various cross designs made of plastics, resins, iron, stone, precious metals and even some made of wood. They are painted, glued, stapled, sprayed, dipped, baked, hammered and sewn. Some of the materials used are difficult to identify what they are!
We’ve chosen a different point of view.
Jesus, our Savior, died on an imperfect cross made of wood. The” Perfection of the Ages” hung on an old rugged cross. The nails were rusted. The wood was warped. The blood was precious. The price was beyond cost.
We make The HoldingCrossTM and our HoldingCross HisWordCubesTM and HoldingCross PrayerCubesTM out of natural wood. The wood is imperfect. So are we. Not every imperfection in our work is covered over. In fact, we generally will struggle to decide about letting a piece go through our “quality control” process because we are led by the spirit to believe that someone will be blessed knowing that this piece is imperfect just like they are.
Jesus died on the cross to make that which was imperfect (you and me), acceptable to The Father. The work we do isn’t perfect. His was!
We work with natural wood as a reminder that He was a carpenter. He worked with wood. He cut, shaped, sanded and made pieces of wood that would bless others.
Why wood?
Because Jesus did his best work with wood.
