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Ted Cantrell is a long-term financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual, but he is also a talented artist and a beautiful soul.
He grew up in New Hope, Texas, close to Dallas, and was recruited to NM right out of college. (It was the country club and the ride in the luxury town car that sold him.) While he has worked as an advisor for 45 years, one of his talents has always been woodworking, and more particularly, making art from cast-off or recycled materials. He loves to take things people have throw away and make something beautiful out of them. "In a way," he says, "It is the purpose of our lives. To bring beauty out of ugliness, value out of worthlessness." It is what God has done with us!
His idea for a cross made of old yardsticks came about in a special way. As was his custom, Ted was perusing a flea market one day looking for materials for his art. He came across a whole barrel full of cast-off yardsticks. Immediately he thought about using them to make a cross, however, the title of his artwork is a very significant part of the piece to Ted and he couldn't think of what he would call the piece he had envisioned. A little while later, while having breakfast with his pastor, he mentioned the cross and the yardsticks. His pastor said, "Well, you have to call it 'The Full Measure of His Love.'" And that was it!
The symbol of the cross has great significance to Ted. He quotes Colossians 2:14-15, "having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." The cross symbolizes VICTORY!
Ted created this cross, now hanging in One Bistro, as a custom piece, designed to serve as a beacon of God's love and a reminder of the value He places on each of our lives and the victory He won on the cross!
Ted has created a duplicate of this cross which will be auctioned off during National Everybody Eats Week.
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