EVERLASTING FATHER

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."   –Isaiah 9:6

This sign was definitely a team undertaking. We hauled this beautiful blue Chevrolet tailgate back from Judy's Kentucky farm. This was a prize from the first trip—you know—the trip that involved getting the trailer stuck in the mud road.  My Mom and Chewie deserve a lot of credit for multiple (cold) trips to Kentucky to dig through piles of lumber and sift through a lifetime collection of farm tools and "things you might need someday".

My brother Andrew cut the back of the tailgate off to make it lighter. Without this step, I'm not sure we would have been able to hang it on the wall.

I fashioned the "Everlasting" letters out of metal strapping. It was hard to get the curves just right, so I planned to wire or weld them in place.

The letters for "Father" were cut out of old barn siding metal. The metal was so thin and rusty I actually used an old pair of scissors to cut out all but two of them. I used tin snips on the slightly thicker "H" and "R".

Lilli scrubbed the letters with an old toothbrush and soapy water. She thoroughly enjoyed that process and did a very nice job.

Friends from church, Tom and Kelly Epperson, generously took on the task of attaching the letters to the tailgate. They used several layers of industrial adhesive.  As promised, the adhesive is slowly drying clear, so hopefully by another week or so, the white edging around the letters won't show!