Month: July 2014

There’s nothing like the sound of a blood curdling scream at 2 a.m. to rouse you out of bed and prepare you to start your day. This happened on two separate occasions last night. Yes. Twice. In one night. The first shout of horror came from my daughter who, when questioned, stared at me with a blank expression indicating she was in fact half asleep at the moment. Too asleep to answer. Not  asleep enough to let go of my neck. So there I stayed for about 15 minutes, heart pounding after a sprint down the hall, in the headlock of a snoring six-year-old.

I finally returned to bed and stared at the ceiling until all symptoms of cardiac arrest ceased. I then dozed off for what seemed like about 8.5 seconds before my name rang through the house yet again. This time from the general direction of the 5 year-old’s room. He, however, was wide awake, sitting straight up in bed, awaiting my arrival. Which, admittedly, took longer than it should have because, in my delirium, I headed the wrong way down the hall. Forgive me son. At 3:45 a.m. you all sound the same.

I was greeted with another panic stricken face and immediately placed in a half-Nelson. When asked what had frightened him, my son said, and I quote, “There’s a cricket out there.”

Now, my son’s room is at the front of the house and outside the window there are, indeed, any number of crickets. It’s Summer. We live in the desert. ‘Nuff said. I decided to forgo sharing this tidbit of info with him for fear that he would immediately cut all oxygen flow to my brain. (Motherhood is really all about survival sometimes, isn’t it folks?) Truth be told, he wasn’t at all concerned about the thousands of crickets outside the house, but the ONE that had apparently penetrated the fortress and was chirping loudly outside his bedroom.

I immediately grabbed the fly swatter and began looking for the illusive cricket. Somehow sensing his imminent demise, the cricket launched a most brilliant counteroffensive and completely stopped chirping. The silence was enough to convince my son that the cricket had moved on and he was able to fall asleep. I was not so lucky. I spent the next two hours tossing and turning and listening to the chirp of that hateful cricket. I finally managed to fall asleep, just as I saw the sun beginning to creep through the curtains. An hour later, the alarm went off.

But something dawned on me in the middle of my sleeplessness. That cricket, though annoying and extremely inconsiderate, posed no actual threat to my son. In his moment of hysteria, I couldn’t explain that to him. The only option was to seek out and destroy the enemy. Had he been more composed, I could have reasoned with him. But the truth was, he was tired, he was frightened, and he saw this cricket as a very substantial threat.  I, on the other hand, knew it was just a matter of time. When the sun came up I would be able to unearth the cricket and eliminate the problem. My son was never in danger.

Unfortunately, I often behave the same way. I have my own crickets. They are not as loud, but much more terrifying. My crickets are circumstances. They generally creep up in the middle of the night, when I’m at my weakest. They grip me with a fear that asks, “What are you going to do now? How will you pay that bill? What happens if?” In that moment, when the fear grips me, I will cry and scream and call out for my Father. Many times, he’ll take care of the “cricket” right away. But, more often than not, he simply says “Wait, I’ll take care of it in the morning”. Morning often feels a long way off. But He has never let me down. Perhaps He knows, while the fear is real, the threat is not. Perhaps He knows the thing I am seeing as fatal to our health, our family, our finances, is just an annoyance. Nothing more than a loud, chirping cricket that can do nothing more than keep me up at night. Perhaps, if I stop focusing on the circumstance and trust Him, I will find rest.

Lord, help me to remember the things that threaten my security, the noises I hear at night, are completely defeatable by you. Help me to focus on your goodness, your strength, and your provision to silence the “chirping” of the Evil One when I feel afraid.

Mas・ter・piece    noun \ˈmas-tər-ˌpēs\ 1 :  a work done with extraordinary skill; especially :  a supreme intellectual or artistic achievement 2 :  a person’s greatest piece of work, as in an art. 3 :  anything done with masterly skill: a masterpiece of improvisation. 4 :  a consummate example of skill or excellence of any kind: The chef’s cake was a masterpiece.   I have never considered myself a connoisseur of art, although I have always admired it. My right brain has always marveled at anyone who can take a blank canvas, some random globs of paint and create a beautiful portrait or landscape. But because I lack the skill, my artistic preference has always been for those works that I find aesthetically pleasing, not that demonstrate the artist’s proficiency.  Let’s face it, one can’t appreciate skill unless one has a remote understanding of it. And when it comes to artistic endeavors, skill is something I am sorely lacking. Take sculpture for example. I was never really an enthusiast. All those half naked figures, with their blank eyes, carved in white. To me, color represented life and sculpture was lifeless. Until, one summer, I ventured to Italy and my eyes met this.

Instantly, I was blown away by the detail. The compressions in the skin where his hands held her, the muscles and veins visible in his legs. This was amazing! This was beyond anything I could possibly comprehend, let alone attempt. This artist was a master. I immediately imagined a room full of stone, dust flying as the artist painstakingly chiseled each and every detail of this particular sculpture. The tiresome hours, the aching hands. How much delicate work, how much determination, how much time does it take to turn the vision into the reality? Mind.Blown. This sculpture wasn’t created by an artist. This sculpture was created by a master. A masterpiece is determined, not just by the finished product, but by the skill of the one who creates it. If we view our lives as a work in progress, we cannot discount the skill of the One who is making us. The Author and Perfecter of our faith. Up close, life looks messy. The details of each day and season can seem monotonous. The highs and lows can leave us feeling like we are trapped under a pile of rocks, caught in a whirl of dust, just waiting for it to settle. Each struggle, every pain, just seems to add to the swirling mess we already feel we’re in. But when added by the Master, in the right time and space, it’s just another layer…a perfect detail, a splash of color. To the One who paints the portrait of our life, it’s a skillfully added stroke. A step closer to the finished product. When all we can see is mess, He sees the Masterpiece. We may or may not get a glimpse of the final outcome. If we carefully look back over our lives, we can see the portions that have been carefully crafted and contributed to where we are now. We see His hand. It’s this same hand that held the brush yesterday, holds it today, and will hold it tomorrow. Only when the Artist is finished, will he place his brush down, step back, and see that it is good. “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” -Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)