My four-year-old granddaughter approached me today with a blank piece of paper in one hand and a handful of markers in the other. She was all excited about writing me a letter. Soon she returned with a long list of squiggly lines and she asked me to read what she had written. So I sat about the task of deciphering her code into a story. When I finished I thanked her for writing such an exciting tale. She thanked me for the complement and walked away quite pleased with herself for authoring such a fine piece of literature.
As I watched her go I wondered if we sometimes or often present God with nothing much more than a jumble of deeds, ideas, thoughts and attitudes thinking we are giving Him this grandly scripted life. I am often dismayed at my inability to live consistently. All my grand designs to be good disintegrate when students and colleagues frustrate me with what I think is incompetence. Of course they could never think I am incompetent! So often at the close of a day I wish I had held my tongue and had been more discrete.
I have come to hope that God is taking all these inconsistencies and is weaving them into a lovely tapestry. Actually a tapestry is much more interesting than a plain cloth made of consistently colored threads. How’s that for rationalization? However with God’s help we can write a great life story filled with downs and then ups. The downs are interesting but the ups are incredibly glorious.
Written by Roger Bothwell on August 3, 2003
Spring of Life, 151 Old Farm Rd. Leominster, MA 01453