This is by Cynthia MacGregor.

A pastor whose hobby was carpentry had a plan for a beautiful wooden cross that would seem to float suspended in the air. He would build it in time for the Easter service, he decided. He worked out all the details, but he had no wood with which to build it, and Easter was tomorrow.

Now, he was naturally short of funds as most pastors are, and besides, he lived in a small town, and there was no lumberyard open on a Saturday night nor any such thing as a Home Depot store in that area, so he was baffled as to how to accomplish his goal.

Then he remembered the huge, beautiful wooden spice rack his wife had in the kitchen. If he dismantled it, he might be able to effect a scaled-down version of what he had in mind.

He emptied the spices from the spice rack and put them away in a closet. Then he took down the spice rack and brought it out to his workshop in the garage, where he carefully took the wood apart and re-fashioned it into the cross he had envisioned. He already had the necessary fixtures for the suspension trick, and soon his creation was finished.

By now it was the wee hours of the morning, but the pastor went into the church, fixed the “floating” cross in place, and finally went home to bed for a couple of hours’ much-needed sleep.

As the parishioners filed into the church the next morning for Easter services, they were all struck by the “floating” cross.

Said the first parishioner to enter, “Miraculous.”

Echoed the second parishioner, “Miraculous!”

Then the pastor’s wife walked in: “My rack, you louse!”