Old quilts, mosaics and stained glass have always held a special appeal for me.  I love the fact that old discarded and seeming disconnected fragments -- many from charming, treasured items -- can be reused in pieces of art that stun with their final beauty.  Some of the pieces an artist salvages hardly seem worth the effort.  I have artistic friends who work in ceramic mosaic and stained glass and others who are master quilters.  They go searching for lovely castoffs from which to build the beauty of their finished pieces.  When I see the box of colored bits of glass or the shreds of silk salvaged from old fabric or the gilt edges of a broken teacup, I am amazed that my friends can envision a final opus of such obvious worth.  Only the mind of the artist can perceive the connections and assign the true place value in a new creation.

So it is that many things in our lives come down at the end to only scraps:  this piece of a shattered relationship, that shard from a fractured dream only partially realized, a bit salvaged from the ruin left in the wake of some devastating life circumstance.  Even our most treasured possessions in this life get dropped in accidents or simply wear out with the constant use of even the most careful handling.  Yet I have seen artistic masterpieces made of the pieced remains:  a magnificent teaching quilt kept by family who prized the way a pair of hopeful hands reused bits of old clothing to make a map of the Underground Railroad so someone might know a life of freedom;  a functional work to keep a loved one warm under well-worn woolen scraps reused in a Depression quilt; a stunning tabletop mosaic made from a box of heirloom ceramics that had been crushed under the wheels of a backing truck in a hasty move.

Maybe I'm romanticizing these salvage efforts too greatly.  It doesn't take any of us many years into life to discover that shards and scraps are often all we have left after so many brilliant starts and well-intentioned tries.  For me the act of surrenduring the elements of what I want, what I'm doing, what I dream of doing, my desire for any thing (including any loving relationship), etc., to God means that it is not lost to me the way it is if I only give in or give up.  It is only in His care that what I am or that any of the best parts of my life will ever be preserved.  At the end, I have to trust His salvage efforts, trust that He will preserve not only the core of elemental effort but the beauty and order I so desired to create.

The remains I box up and turn over to His keeping are not only stored for me securely, but HE opens the box to check on its safe arrival and to assign those parts their true value.   The "insured value" I'd like to place on any part of my life is never the right amount.  I have a rather hopeless habit of undervaluing or overvaluing predicated by my limited perspective in time.  HIS love adds a singular salvific dimension to whatever it is that I want to preserve beyond anything like the paltry thing I once hoped it might become.

If you are the Lord's and the work you do is given to the care of the Lord, all will be well in a way it won't be if you hang on hoping to make something of these scraps by your efforts alone.  Our persistent bitterness and relentless resentment and that grim, despairing recital of our unmet needs are our ways of "hanging on" to our limited vision of our opus magnum.

We live in a world where our fallenness touches everything to pollute or spoil or damage, where our best efforts can disintegrate in a day of unfortunate circumstances.  Only in shipping our best-loved things off to that Other's reality can we be sure it is in the best Hands and kept safe to accomplish the work He sent it through us into this world to do.  Jesus, too, had to trust that the broken body HE once laid down would be revived in another form by the Hands and Heart of HIS Father.

Life is the same for all of us:  only some sort of subtle shading varies the great masterpieces which -- I believe with all my heart -- HE is creating from our raw materials of personality, resurrected spirit, renewed mind and the willing donation of our truest selves to HIS handiwork.  I think for most of us -- despite the testimony of verses like Eph. 2:10 -- it takes at least a lifetime for it to occur that the work is HIS, not our own.

"For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things He planned for us long ago." ************************ (You may publish any articles from this site as they appear with the following byline intact.  Please advise me by e-mail if you decide to use one of these articles on your site or in an e-zine.)      After 30+ years in public ministry as missionary, pastoral counselor, homeschooling mentor, writer and editor, Georgia Ana Larson now focuses on an internet-based ministry and business founded in grace and expressed through mentoring others who have a similar desire to work from home, nurture a family, build a business and stay faithful to a deep interior Call to have a life of devotion expressed in service, no matter what context. You can read more of her articles at her home site:  www.aBrighterCandle.com      Web www.aBrighterCandle.com Copyright © 2006 Georgia Ana Larson, All rights reserved

Some Christmas graphics courtesy of:  www.patswebgraphics.com
FREE DRAWINGS  ~  FREE ADVERTISING  ~  FUNDRAISER HELP
HOMESCHOOLING HELP    
  ACAI LIFE DRINK   ~    RECIPES   ~  BOWEN THERAPY 
CANDLE QUENCHER  ~  GOURMET JERKY OF THE MONTH