A Messy and Beautiful Life

Ever since junior high school, I've dabbled in art, filling every elective opportunity with credits in photography, painting, drawing, graphic design, and jewelry making. The trend stayed with me right through college, filling up enough of a credit pool to earn me part of my dual major alongside writing.

As I look back on my years since college, not much has changed. I have continued to produce creative things, always exploring a new medium that fits with my current season in life -- like play-doh and pipe-cleaners, finger painting and coloring, ceramics and knitting -- even though I no longer have a transcript to prove my accomplishments. To some it seems like flitting from one interest to the next, but I can see the pattern. God has made me to enjoy color, texture, reflection, shape, movement. He has made me to take pleasure in joining my mind with my hands as I witness His work pour forth. Sometimes the result is delightfully perfect, spurring me on to do it again. Other times I realize I've stepped out of my element should invest in a bit more training.

My winding road of art, tasting a medium here and exploring another style there, has become a metaphor for how I do life. Unfortunately, life often demands more consistency, more focus, more perseverance. You can't just try out being a mother. It is for life. The role of a wife isn't about self-satisfaction, but rather selfless giving. Ministry work will face its up and and downs, requiring a steadfastness to see the Lord's work completed. Friendships will never last if they come and go on a creative whim. And difficult relationships, in general, ought not be discarded like a disappointing project.

Learning how to navigate a messy and beautiful life is something this artist is just beginning to understand. I'm learning to come to terms with my own life canvas, as I see God's sovereignty from a new perspective and begin to process what it means for a good God to allow suffering and trials, disappointments and blessings in His daughter's life.

Pastor James MacDonald describes trials as an opportunity for the Lord to display His splendor in the life of a believer who surrenders to Him, as she puts her hope Christ and an eternal perspective, instead of narrowly focusing on her circumstances. What a brilliant way to live! This perspective on life's difficulties has given me a new found resolve to persevere -- or as the Greek word HUPOMENE translates this call, "to remain under," seeking to reflect God's glory in the midst of messiness. I am learning to process the "Why God?" questions that gnaw at my soul with a satisfying response: "Because this is an opportunity to display God's splendor!"

Don't misread me! This doesn't take away the pain or grief that partner with trials. But as I learn to surrender to the Lord's way, He gives me to the strength to say, "OK God. I'll remain under what you have allowed in my life so that I can display your splendor to a watching world, desperately needing You as their Lord and source of hope."

A messy and beautiful life requires a full portion of surrender and HUPOMENE. It means humbling yourself before the great Master Artist and allowing His hand to design every detail of the final piece. It is learning to accept the days that the paint just won't stick to the canvas, with a willingness to try again tomorrow. It means putting on a new set of glasses to see the beauty in pastel colors melding into an unintended shade. It means re-purposing shards of clay from an exploded pot, even while grieving the hours spent wedging the clay determined to root out every air bubble.

Living a surrendered life requires answering some basic questions: Do I exist (or create) for the joy of seeing my own end product, or for the process that brings about His end product? Is my passion established in God's purposes for my life or am I seeking a temporary, self-satisfying gain? Is there joy in simply being used, even if the outcome is unpredictable, messy, and unexplainable?

God wants us to humble ourselves before Him. He promises to lift us up and extend us His grace in the process. There is such freedom in a surrendered life, knowing that as His beautiful creation, created to create -- created to live, that the finished product is not really of our own hands but instead an absolute display of His splendor.

James 4:6-7

But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
Submit yourselves, then, to God.