It's the last thing I do before going to bed and the first thing I check on when my feet hit the floor. My projects. My Christmas. It came out of a need to save money, so I'd been treasure hunting since September. I decided to make all my Christmas gifts this year, so I've been collecting things that have a past. I am going to make them new and they will become the next chapter of stories for my family.
Today, as I began to sand through wood trying to erase scars and scratches I suddenly picture the hands and feet of Jesus. His scars changed everything, so I stop sanding. The nicks and notches in the old wood have suddenly become beautiful.
I can't explain exactly how I feel doing this. but it's a joy I've never felt before. I have come out of a really hard season, but I feel God's presence all over me. As I worked and planned in the quiet of my greenhouse, the space became a place for memories to surface. I began to remember the places in my life where I'd planted memorial stones. God began to remind me of the praise in the mountain tops. And He stayed right beside me as we went back together and skirted the darker valleys, and I knew it was He that got me through them.
God reminded me that my story was written by Him and that he wanted me to leave behind a part of Him in it, and so... I sand and stain and glaze and paint and wait and check on...
Weeks go by and I sit here still, in this place of remembering. A place where God's truth, power, and promise rush around and through me so fast that I spin. Mostly with joy and love...and yet...most of my Christmas still sits in piles unfinished.
This room...a mess. But beautiful chaos I think. In the corners lay lovely things that wait. On a table, ruined by glue and paint, sits three cut out's of little boys hands and a box. I remember the day I sat the boys down on the back porch and painted the bottoms of their feet green. They giggled. Said it tickled. Then I stood them on a poster board, and their footprints became ornaments for our tree last year. Just a few weeks ago, we did their hands because they need to be on the tree too. The box is for Stella Grace. I glazed it shiny then painted it with green ivy. Inside it holds a letter just to her.
And then Fall came...
And with God's very breath over our country mountain home, fresh inspiration came over me in the season I love the most. So I started to collect the pieces of our home that I can give away to remember. Our leaves.
I preserve, and paint. I make things new, and I remember. I now have faith for my pile of unfinished... Because there will be birthdays....weddings...babies... graduations.
And so...on Christmas I will give away forever remembered moments of a season in my life. A season in my story written by God where a greatly loved daughter had a heart full of praise.
And so...I sand, and paint, and wait, and trust because our story...God's and mine...is not finished yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment