Crafted Together

      I was working on a puzzle. I'd just started; it was a picture of a human faerie maiden playing music in a moonlight wilderness of ruins. The edge was a golden gilt frame, studded with jewels; I was sorting pieces, picking out the ones with the straight edges, listening to Sara Groves. The song died and I heard it; the crying.
     It was coming from my parents room; it was my sister, struggling again with the decisions my parents had already struggled with, discussing what is best. My Dad's work phone beeped; he had to go to work. The charged meeting would soon be over. She came out later and played the piano; it's her release.
      What changed me was in-between. I heard the crying and started praying, praying, praying, pouring out all I had to Father, who has sovereign control, Son, who saved us, and Spirit, who changes us and can work peace in us. Three in one; I am new to praying to three in one, at least this way--Sunday's sermon was on it. Minor details I use to give my mind something to focus on other than pain.
     But I struggled with praying, keeping my mind fixed on Him. He's been helping me with it; praying for His will, praying for more than ten seconds without drifting. Here, what distracted was the puzzle pieces. I wanted to cry. I was exchanging focus on souls, people I loved, souls, immortal, the most beautiful things in existence, for cheap cardboard imitations of gaudy golden gilt. I traded pleading with God to play with a falling apart picture. And it wasn't just once. Pulling my mind back, it would travel again; I saw a new edge piece, it's greener-than-teal back tugging at my vision. This, while I prayed for a crying sister. It's an apt metaphor for what usually distracts us from God.
      But pray I did; hear, God certainly did; the results, God alone knows--and God alone is responsible for. But the once piece I did put in place reminded me that, while I may struggle to put together the pieces of painted cardboard, God has crafted together every event, making miracles in moments, and holding helpless souls who cry in pain. Even those who come out a few minutes later and pretend everything is fine, practice a music piece for a friend coming over (it must be done), and my Dad who comes out and gives us goodbyes as he goes to work. It's my family; we hide. But never successfully from the God who makes true beauty, who shapes the lives of the broken, falling apart children into something beautiful.

Conflicting Thoughts

      A week or two ago I was struggling with depression; through the advice of some good friends I told my parents. They encouraged me to go to our pastor, and I met with him last night. My defensive reactions and desire to be distracted told me more than enough--he was speaking the truth, and I hadn't been listening. To serve, to thank God, to pray through scripture, to wait with thankfulness--these things I had not been doing. My desire for him--or any Christian--to think well of me was all too apparent. "I" am currently the center of my life. ("Oh Christ, be the center of our lives, be the place we fix our eyes, be the center of our lives"--the song goes on to focus on Christ, not us...truth in music.)
     This morning, after homework, a few chores, I read A Chance to Die (Amy Carmichael's biography by Elisabeth Elliot), or rather, a major portion of it. Carmichael's poetry is as stunning as her life is complex. Her faith, trust, singular focus, and complete dependence on God is something that brings me to my knees before God, asking for a similar heart; the way she secluded herself from the world, her view of story's role, are things I question and weigh and wonder and ponder...but overriding it all is her unfaltering determination to follow her Captain with no pride, no fear, no wavering, and no other ultimate guide. Her suffering, determination, and joy in her savior go beyond what I have known or seen. But that incredible spirit was shown in cleaning rooms, changing diapers, loving children without compromise in them or her, in trusting God for the future when He allowed death to sweep through those she cooked and cleaned for...in serving. In my prior readings of the book she had struggled with giving up evangelism for a family of seventy children (she literally couldn't do both), considering one more glorious than the other--and learning that it wasn't. Doing dishes for my sister, running an errand for my mother, picking up a piece of trash in a parking lot, that's similar if done for God's glory. Even now my desire for my own glory runs strong through it (God, forgive me!), but I am praying that I forget myself--that He focuses me on Him, and those He loves.
     And then I run errands, see just a few minutes of a movie, and I have no desire to focus on God's will anymore, but merely to live in happy daydreams that will never bring glory to God. And I come home, and find someone I love is struggling--sinning, once again. God's kingdom is back, right there in my face, as I had spoken with her this morning and heard nothing, ignored what I had seen. Just as she wanted me to. Will failure ever not be bitter? Will helplessness? Or will it drive me deeper and deeper into prayer? Will I trust as Amy did? Will I give them over to Him?
     And in this, I am to be thankful. Sincerely thankful--God, I thank you for the lives of prior saints, for your unshakable hold on your children, those I love, too; for your ability to calm me and banish my distrust, for showing me you, thank you, Father.