Pulling it all Together

crabapples and my pretties

 My crabapple tree was beautiful in full bloom this spring, and now it's loaded with fruit.  After reading an article on "The Art of Arranging" in the August issue of Real Simple magazine, I was inspired to make this arrangement on my dining room table, and crowned it off with crabapple limbs. Doing things like this really help me get "centered" after times that stretch my spiritual walk with the Lord and pull me away from my daily routine. Somehow, being creative and focusing on the details of beauty help me get back to a spiritual perspective for all that has rattled me.

As I tried to put into practice the suggestions from the article, I couldn't help but think about how I was trying to "pull it all together" spiritually and practically now that I was home from three very busy and trying weeks of traveling and working--first babysitting grandson #2, then painting my mom's living room, and in the middle of it all--a wonderful 4-day summer fling with my "forever friends"-- then a few more days of painting and preparing for bed bug treatment at mother's house, and finally at the end--a family reunion. Then, once home, our clothes, luggage and pillows had to be treated for the bed bugs we had collected. You just never know what life will hold...

So using "The Art of Arranging," from Real Simple magazine, let me share how I've pulled myself  together....after days of joy, pleasure, difficult circumstances, personal challenges, and physical and spiritual demands.

"Where to Start....it begins with hunting and gathering....Successful displays are about character, composition, and a pulled-together palette."

Opening my Bible put me on the hunt...hunting and gathering the Words of Truth about all that concerned me.  God's Word, a rich habitat for the trophies of wisdom and understanding, and the Holy Spirit, renewed my mind and replaced wrong thoughts with right ones. Then with thanksgiving, allowing Christ to have His way in my weak and flawed flesh. Afterall, it is only the character of Christ on display in the brokenness of my life that will bring glory to my God. A composition of redemption and renewal, a pulling together of the Perfect into the imperfect of my flesh...

"But you don't have to get it right the first time.  Let things evolve...tweaking...along the way"

Have you noticed that we rarely get it right the first time? But we have a Savior who sympathizes with our weaknesses and so lovingly pours out mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. We are "being changed" into the image of Christ....always present tense....it happens by a daily dying and resurrection--not all at once. Our Lord gives us grace for this evolution...we must give it to each other also....

in the dining room...       "The center space is your canvas..."

I had to spiritually focus on myself and my Father for a few days.  I was physically tired, but more than that, spiritually unsettled and hungry.  My center space has been made alive to the spiritual and it is now God's canvas--I don't create myself...He creates Christ in me. Spiritual living in the physical and the physical becoming the spiritual. I needed my Lord to clear out the periphery and create in me a clean heart...one that would receive his creative life-giving touch.

"...and the ends stay clear so there's room to eat without moving everything."  

A heart that's hungry, needs spiritual food....but if I don't clear off the table, there's no room for the manna.  The clearing away, agreeing with the Lord about what has to leave my heart, is mandatory for the centerpiece to shine true.

"Imperfect symmetry makes for a dramatic but not-too-formal view."

What's imperfect in my life fits into God's symmetry when He miraculously makes a Simply Susan into an arrangement of His making.  He's so good at taking "matching pieces" of the physical life of His children--the common-ness of sin, strengths and weaknesses--then throwing "in something subtly off,"  like glass with pottery--or a smart "dumb" blonde so that each of us can say to the world, "That's right--I'm eclectic."  not perfect...

"A splash of pattern and texture...gives solids a point of view...exposing some wood adds richness to the scene"  

God's art of arranging our lives makes all things good and beautiful in time, and especially when the wood of the old rugged cross shines forth on the solid foundation of His work.

...in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.  Eph. 4:22-24

crabapple in bloom

crabapples galore!