A Patchwork Life

If your life is anything like mine, it's a combination of the good and bad, the beautiful moments and ugly moments, the fun, carefree times and the stress of trying to hold it all together as a parent or in a workplace environment.  Some days I'm just glad to be alive and other days people and the world around me are so negative and disappoint me so severely that I just want to leave it all behind.

How can this be?  It's because we have been created with emotions and also because this world is not paradise.  In the Bible Jesus tells us that "in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)  So we have basically been promised that we will experience trouble and hard times. Rich Mullins wrote a song about troubles that I can relate to and it also encourages me. You can find it on YouTube. A lot of his songs encourage me because he's just real and sings about real life.


The hard times will make us strong if we let them.  I've heard people say that trials will either make you bitter or better, and I believe that's true.  It's a matter of perspective and attitude.  When I was in grade school I was made fun of all the time.  I would often go home in tears and my mom would just tell me that kids do that because they're jealous of me...although I couldn't for the life of me see anything they would be jealous of!  I was just a normal kid - not really pretty, not rich, not stylish, not good at sports..just ordinary.  But what I learned from the pain of being treated that way was that I never wanted to purposely cause that kind of pain to anyone else.  It helped me to become compassionate.  And God also taught me about forgiveness at that young age.  Forgiveness is freeing.  Compassion is essential to live a Christian life effectively.


So as I reflect on these things I see my life as a quilt that has been pieced together of all types of fabrics (I am a quilter, so this is a good analogy for me).  In a scrap quilt there are all colors and types of prints used - some are spectacularly beautiful- some very ordinary; some I might not even like, but when you add them to the scrap quilt they become one lovely piece of artwork and you would never even notice a particular fabric....you see the whole, not the individual pieces.  That's how God sees us - one beautiful creation and that's how we should see ourselves.  Don't obsess over the not-so-nice or  repulsive parts of your life - see what God sees!