It's so frustrating when you are putting together a puzzle, and you’ve gotten to the last piece, but it’s missing. What’s even more frustrating is when you know you have all the pieces but can’t figure out how to make them fit together. You’ve tried every angle and every vacant spot but you just can’t complete the picture!
Today is a missing piece to my puzzle, a missing piece to my life. Today I’ve realized I don’t yet have all the pieces to who I am. It’s frustrating because all I want is to see the complete picture of my potential in order to measure up my progress. I just want my puzzle, the complexities of who I am to be solved right now. I want to know my purpose for living. What’s the purpose of this trait or that desire? How does it fit into the big picture of who God created me to be?
Today I sang a worship song. One of the lines says “All I am is Yours.”
I always thought of this line as a surrendering to God my “all.” I always pictured it as a sacrifice that I gave. I pictured myself kneeling at the feet of God and asking Him… giving Him permission to take my “all” and my everything…
As if I actually possessed and understood all that I am!
The truth of these words “All I am is Yours” resonated differently within me today, though. I saw a different perspective, a different picture. This is how I pictured it:
I saw myself kneeling at the feet of God, as before, but this time with an unfinished puzzle in my hand. The puzzle was me. I was coming to God because I’d been looking everywhere… in money, in relationships, in expectations, and recognition for the missing pieces of me.
I was like a little kid, looking in the couch cushions and in my pockets for any object that might pass as a piece to the puzzle. And, like any child without vision, foresight, or a keen ability to see the bigger picture, I got flustered and was just about ready to fling all the pieces against a wall.
But then I remembered… All that I am, all the pieces to my personality, is God’s. He owns and manufactures every bit of my being. And, if I ever need to find any missing pieces to who I am I will only find them in Him.
Though it may seem faster to try and jam the off-colored, oddly-shaped pieces of personality that I can find in the couch cushions of this world, my picture will never be completed with counterfeit.
But, if I am patient and come to God day by day, like a child to his father, looking for the missing piece to my puzzle, then patience will have its perfect work in me that I might be perfect and complete lacking nothing (James 1:4).
Today is a missing piece and I found it in God. In worship. In fellowship with my Father, the Creator, Manufacturer, and Author of my all and my everything.
***
(5/07) TODAY is a coloring book.
I am the pictures on the pages that have yet to be colored in. I am only an outline, a black and white drawing that lacks any character. I am blank and I am waiting.
You have seen my life from its beginning. You are the Author and Finisher of this book. You have created the outlines of me that I see on every page. You have authored it, You have published it, but You have yet to finish what You started.
You were gracious enough, patient enough, wise enough to give me numbers to color by. You know the exact hue, the exact shading, the exact texture of every contour of my shape and being. You see the colors before I do. You see the details that would best compliment the blank picture before me.
And I have been sitting here with the crayon in my hand. And I have been wondering. What do I do? Do I follow your pattern? Do I fill in the blanks with the colors that you suggest? Sometimes I do. But, there are colors and patterns that You suggest that seem to disagree with the vision of who I think I am. I know that this is an issue. I haven’t surrendered yet to the vision that you have for me. I keep filling in orange instead of green, purple instead of pink. And you have let me.
Today is a coloring book. There are pages of my life that are completed, pictures that are beautifully crafted because I have followed the instructions. Then, there are pages that I wish I could rip right out. Their colors do not compliment your plan and they clash with your design.
But today’s page is blank. It is brand new. Despite the pages of the past which I’ve filled sloppily or haphazardly, there is always a new page that You provide. Today’s page is so fresh. The cleanness of it reminded me of its purpose. To be filled. It is screaming to be filled. And it is filling up quickly. The red crayon is in my hand and I am drawing outside of the lines, like love overflowing. I can’t stop coloring my love for You in my life. I hope that the deeper, the longer, the more carefully I fill these blank pages, You will look at it with joy. When I complete this page and offer it to You like a little child would, I hope You, as my Father, will hang it on the refrigerator where all my other days have gone. Every day you do this. Despite my mistakes, my sloppy disregard for the numbers, you love and appreciate the days that I have given You.
I am the pictures on the pages that have yet to be colored in. I am only an outline, a black and white drawing that lacks any character. I am blank and I am waiting.
You have seen my life from its beginning. You are the Author and Finisher of this book. You have created the outlines of me that I see on every page. You have authored it, You have published it, but You have yet to finish what You started.
You were gracious enough, patient enough, wise enough to give me numbers to color by. You know the exact hue, the exact shading, the exact texture of every contour of my shape and being. You see the colors before I do. You see the details that would best compliment the blank picture before me.
And I have been sitting here with the crayon in my hand. And I have been wondering. What do I do? Do I follow your pattern? Do I fill in the blanks with the colors that you suggest? Sometimes I do. But, there are colors and patterns that You suggest that seem to disagree with the vision of who I think I am. I know that this is an issue. I haven’t surrendered yet to the vision that you have for me. I keep filling in orange instead of green, purple instead of pink. And you have let me.
Today is a coloring book. There are pages of my life that are completed, pictures that are beautifully crafted because I have followed the instructions. Then, there are pages that I wish I could rip right out. Their colors do not compliment your plan and they clash with your design.
But today’s page is blank. It is brand new. Despite the pages of the past which I’ve filled sloppily or haphazardly, there is always a new page that You provide. Today’s page is so fresh. The cleanness of it reminded me of its purpose. To be filled. It is screaming to be filled. And it is filling up quickly. The red crayon is in my hand and I am drawing outside of the lines, like love overflowing. I can’t stop coloring my love for You in my life. I hope that the deeper, the longer, the more carefully I fill these blank pages, You will look at it with joy. When I complete this page and offer it to You like a little child would, I hope You, as my Father, will hang it on the refrigerator where all my other days have gone. Every day you do this. Despite my mistakes, my sloppy disregard for the numbers, you love and appreciate the days that I have given You.
***
(7/06) TODAY is hyperventilation.
I'm gasping, grabbing, frantically pulling everything into myself that I need to survive and getting too much of it, wishing I could slow down, take a deep breath and have a good cry.
I'm finding out that love (true, unconditional, best-friend kind of love) is poisonous. It's addictive and I can't keep myself from craving it. I'm getting too much of it all at once, right before it will be snatched away from me.
I'm leaving for college soon and all I have been doing lately is spending time with the people I love. When I can't have that time (when plans are cancelled, when I have to work, when a friend goes on vacation and leaves me behind) I panic.
It's never been this way before, but I feel as if every second of time has to be consumed with the feeling of friendship. Only recently have I begun to think, why not seclude myself? Instead of hyperventilation, why not deprivation, choking, drowning, cutting off all ties so you won't miss it as much?
That is where I find myself: either take it all in at once or let it all go.
Have you ever tried holding your breath for as long as you possibly can? Ever threaten to hold your breath until you got what you wanted or else you'll die for the lack of oxygen? If you have, you know it is impossible. Your body has a defense mechanism... Either you breathe willingly or you faint and your body will breathe for you.
Today, I held my breath... toyed with the idea of isolating myself from my friends until they realized they'll miss me just as much as I already miss them.
You see, it seems unfair to me that I am craving their attention, their time, and affection and all they do is move along. They look at me as if it won't be the last time. They laugh and instantly toss my jokes aside. They act as if my role as a friend won't be filled by another person when I'm gone. Or so it seemed.
But, God put me under today. He knocked me out in my own overwhelming self-pity and convinced me that I won't be forgotten. For such a time as this, I have such friends as these. And instead of frantically gasping for air or subtly withholding from it, He told me to breathe again.
So now I am resting... Eyes shut and unconsciously breathing.
Physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally God has given me a defense mechanism that causes me to breathe love even when I don't want to. For love is just as necessary as oxygen.
Steadily, I receive and give love. Not thinking about how the cadence will soon change... just doing it... breathing love and friendship...
In and Out... In and Out...
***
(6/06) TODAY is a tinted window.
In it I see a shallow reflection of the past four years of my life. I say "shallow" because I can only see in today the tangible, practical evidence my high school years have made. I know that there were people and there were situations that deeply altered who I am, but it is hard to see how deeply just yet.
It's like looking at my reflection in the mirror. I can't see my soul, but I know it's there. I can tell by the emotion in my face, the life in my eyes, the daily wear and tear of my skin. All of which are tangible... practical.
But, today is not a mirror. It's not just the past, but also the future that I see. College-life is distant and foreign. Obscured by inexperience, I can't picture it clearly. But I know it's there. I have my expectation and I have my hopes. I make out the dark shape in the corner to be what I hope it will be (sometimes, what I dread it will be).
It's like when I was younger and I pictured the chair in my bedroom to be a four-legged monster in the middle of the night. I see my future college roommate that way too. Not as a monster necessarily, but I do imagine the best- and worst-case scenarios.
But why do I even try to look through the dark glass of the present to make out the future?
It's because I know it's there. Everyday, I wake up and there it is... a faint reflection of yesterday and shadowed images that suggest tomorrow.
I think it will always be this way. The glass will never become clear and I will never resist the urge to remember, to hope, to imagine, to stare at the faded images that tend to present themselves as tangible evidence of past and future.
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