Your Life is a Mosaic

Do you ever feel your life is composed of many fragmented, dull and inconsequential experiences? Do you find yourself rushing from one mundane task to another, only to wake up tomorrow for more of the same?  Me, too.  

So many of our days are spent performing rote tasks that are necessary, but don’t  really seem to amount to anything important in the scheme of things. Right now, I’m sitting and typing and I already have spent the first hour and a half of my day washing clothes, cleaning a bathroom and taking out the trash.  Not very exciting stuff. I have to say, though, the highlight of my trash-taking-out  was when I found the white garbage bag of  old pumpkins I had left by the front door yesterday (don’t judge) leaking and spouting a trail of clear, foul-smelling ooze  all the way from the front door, through the kitchen, laundry room, and garage to the trash can. True story.  Out came the paper towels,  mop, and sanitizing wipes. Wow, don’t everyone faint with excitement.  I wouldn’t want to be responsible for any of your stress-related injuries.  Honestly, that stuff is BORING.  Oftentimes, we conclude that boring equals unimportant.  Since so much of our time is spent doing these seemingly unimportant tasks  we assume then, that we are also unimportant.

Do you think that too? Can I tell you something?  You couldn’t be more wrong.

You see, there are stories behind the tasks.  Those rotten pumpkins were carved by little hands that were so excited to be elbow deep in pumpkin goo, scooping, carefully saving the seeds, drawing the faces.  Those pumpkins were their art.  They had never carved pumpkins before, and we left them proudly displayed in all of their glorious imperfections on the ledge near the front door so that all who entered could see the orange smiling faces.  So, we left them a little too long, but so what?  

That laundry mountain that never ceases to erupt is evidence that there is life in your home.  Same goes for the dirty dishes, the scattered toys, the fingerprints on the windows.  There is a story behind the mundane, and if you and I are not careful, we may miss it.  Now I’m a huge proponent of time management, efficiency, job sourcing (which looks like chores for kids, by the way), setting life goals, and self improvement.   But I will leave those subjects for future blogs.

 

For now, I would like to leave you with this:  Cherish your days.  Look carefully for the stories.  There is a Master Artist who longs to take all the broken, imperfect pieces of our lives and create a beautiful masterpiece with them.  In fact, He is already at work doing just that. Those dark pieces?  They’re a part of the picture.  I’ve heard it once said that an artist can’t create light unless there is dark to contrast it.   So don’t despise the mundane. Don’t be ashamed of past mistakes, the imperfections, the dark pieces.  

Look hard for the precious story that lies quietly underneath the surface.  Your life is a masterpiece.  You can’t see the whole picture now because you are too close.  But there is One who is creating, setting those pieces in a beautiful pattern that will bring joy to Himself, and tell a story to others.

Pumpkin pie, anyone?