Turning the Prosaic into a Mosaic

It seemed like it happened overnight. I looked out the back window, and the leaves one of the trees in our backyard had started changing into magnificent fall colors. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and I was beckoned outside with my camera to try to capture the fleeting beauty.

I snapped pictures of the leaves, angling my camera, focusing, coming closer and then backing away. We planted this red oak tree in our yard when the house was being built over twelve years ago. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about this tree. I can look out the window and see it or walk outside by it every day. But, when I really started to look at it and appreciate the natural beauty of it simply doing what trees do, my level of awareness is changed; my perspective is sharpened. I find beauty in this simplicity. And I find my inadequate thankfulness concerning these everyday miracles.

Isn't this the way we are in life? We trudge through life, days come and go, and we fail to see the beauty in the things around us. We can be sitting at the breakfast table when a joke is told, and we look around, see the twinkling eyes, feel the belly-laughs, and we realize that this is a moment we could live in forever. There are no picture-perfect backdrops, and we are not "dressed" for a life-changing moment. But we find ourselves there...mystified by the beauty of it. Realizing that it was probably there last week or last month, and we missed it. Suddenly, we are focused on the ordinary and finding it to be extraordinary.

There is a quote that appears in various places and in different forms, but it goes something like this:

What if you woke up today with only the things you were thankful for yesterday?

Without warning, if we no longer had these ordinary "things", if they were gone in the twinkling of an eye, where would we be? I know that we cannot hold onto anything earthly forever, but what if we did savor these things a little more while we could?

Those smiling faces at the breakfast table will soon be grown. The silly jokes they told, those lingering snuggles in bed, the "one more" bedtime kiss, the "eternal" game of Monopoly in the living room floor. Those are the ordinary affairs that I want engraved as the extraordinary on my heart.

Let the prosaic experiences make a mosaic of remembrances in your soul.

How often do we fail to truly see the beauty that God has placed in our lives, for our enjoyment, to nurture our souls, to bring us to an attitude of gratefulness? He has given us these people and this time. Our friends, our families. We are here but for an instant. He has brought us to this juncture that we might see His hand moving throughout the patchwork pieces of our lives, that we might realize that it is in these times, these people, these places, we can genuinely recognize His Sovereignty. His love for us is so big it overflows our hearts. We cannot seize it but we can glimpse it, feel it as it is rushing over us.

This season of Thanksgiving can be a time of reflection; it can give us the motivation for looking beyond ourselves to really "see" what we have to be grateful for. In a fast-moving world where gains and losses happen overnight, we recognize that the things we are most thankful for are the things that money cannot buy, film cannot capture, and time will not stand still for. Now is the time to engage your senses, breathe in the moment, the feelings, the love, the joy; let these be the ornaments that adorn your heart.

While in the midst of your reflection, while the memories are imprinting on your heart, while you are savoring the cherished moments, stop and remember from Whom these blessings are from. When you are at your bedside praying, remember that it is He who has given us our daily bread. The commoplace items that we take for granted are the ones most essential to our lives. The air you breathe, the water you drink, the steady beating of the heart in your chest. Praise God that in His Sovereignty He fashioned the earth to accommodate and sustain us.

And now recall that before time began, He knew that we would fall away. He knew that we would try to replace His true love with temporary incidentals. He had a plan of redemption all along because He KNEW how we would be. He sent Jesus, who willingly gave His own life for all the sins we would commit. He did it because He loves us THAT much, and He had been thinking about us for eternity. He longs to know you and to be known by you. Let us stretch this solstice of thanksgiving into a preparation of our hearts to truly receive Him this Christmas season.

#thanksgiving