The Masterpiece

When you look death, or the distinct possibility thereof, squarely in the face it tends to change your life perspective.  While we all know that we won’t get outta here alive, we don’t tend to live each day like it could be our last.  I am not suggesting a morbid outlook, but it has become more and more evident to me that we bustle through our days busy with work and all our many responsibilities of life often letting the lesser things dominate the greater.

I suppose that every person has their own definition of lesser and greater things.  Those definitions, however, often change when weighed on the scale of life.

Last week, I didn’t feel quite up to par.  Nothing big.  Just a sore throat, lower temperature than normal, increased aches and fatigue.  By Friday, the good doctor thought it best to not only do a CBC but also a few other tests…just to be on the safe side.  I was in a hurry to get home and have my nap because the weekend was going to be filled with “the greater things.”

My daughter, Bethany, and two of my grandchildren (Dana, 4 and Ethan, 9 mths.) were coming to spend the night.  Actually, Bethany was having a much needed girls night out with her BFF Holly and we were keeping the kids.  Her night included some amazing tacos, a painting party, and lots of chocolate.  Our evening included a walk and scooter ride around the duck pond, investigating newly hatched ducklings and an egg that didn’t quite develop, weeding and digging in the back yard flower beds, making and enjoying spaghetti, a little girl and a big bubble bath, playing beauty shop, watching the constant discoveries of a 9 month old, books, giggles, and staying up later than mommy would have approved.  Tadee was tired.  But what wonderful memories!

After breakfast and more outside adventures, Bethany and crew headed out to their next stop and I headed inside to freshen up for my next “greater thing.”  My BFF from elementary through high school, Kay Smith McCuller, came in from Nacogdoches to take me to lunch and then to spend some time with her sister.  She lost her mom to Alzheimer’s not long ago and had already laid her dad to rest.  There are countless memories of growing up in and out of each other’s houses…her mom’s fruit kolaches, sleepovers, painting pet rocks, whispering and giggling into the night only to be met by a deer head (that’s another story!), bike rides, and boyfriends.  Even though life has taken us different directions, when you reconnect with a friend you simply take up where you left off.  Amazing.  What a blessing to add another memory to the list.

After a much needed nap and time with my sweetheart sitting and talking around the fire pit on the back porch, my BFF from college, Kelly Stephens Blanscet, joined us, after attending another friend’s birthday party, to spend the night and next day.  Wrapped in warmth, sitting around the fire and under the stars, we three talked until the fire and I both wore out. 

After enjoying morning coffee, waffles, and more conversation, we headed out to the antique shops in Tomball and lunch on the porch of a new little eatery.   The outing required several stops for me to sit and rest, but that’s ok, no one was in a hurry.  More memories.  Indeed, this is part of the greater things.

As I collapsed into the covers for a much-needed nap, the events of the weekend played in my mind.  Just as Bethany and Holly celebrated their friendship through the medium of paint, each memory made creates a brush stroke on the masterpiece of our lives.  Each connection is a thread in our life tapestry.  Each day enlarges the final work, but we don’t know when the last touch will be added or what size it will turn out to be.  All we can do is choose the colors. 

Paint well. 

“So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away,

our inner self is being renewed day by day.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us

an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

                                                                2 Corinthians 4:16-18