Is Mother’s day a special occasion for you? Or is it a moment you feel grief, longing, or pressure too heavy to lift? I hope it’s a day full of joy and I see you if it presents as painful or the familiar mix of both. Much of life is a mix, isn’t it? Reasons for joy and pain swirl together, inextricably bonded. A perfect moment can only be tasted fleetingly, and in that knowing, lies an ache. The baby blowing bubbles. This won’t last. Squeezing your mother’s hand. This won’t last. Painting Great Grandma’s nails. This won’t last. On good days, I get to join in the shimmer, feeling the golden even as it’s fading. I ache to make it stay. Sometimes it’s the reverse. The painful thing, having a broken parent or losing a friendship feels like the pain will end us and still, it is the frame through which we see the dream of what could have been or the joy that sometimes was.
This is how life’s beauty is pinned down by time, and it touches everyone who loves, including mothers. Some tragedies don’t have time to resolve and fairytales are cut short. There are so many ragged edges and ragged hearts. Who will stitch it all together? Who will take the fractured pieces and make the mosaic that dazzles us?
There are so many ragged edges and ragged hearts. Who will stitch it all together?
Jesus Christ will. We live in golden moments and moments when the precious plates we’re spinning fly out and shatter. But Jesus Christ tracks it all and every story line will thread through, every worthless bit worked in. Every beautiful stitch will be picked up and continue on in a line that extends into eternity. Redemption is an all-consuming work. Every odd piece and those we’d especially like to throw out cause God to say, Hmm…I know where I can use that.
The Bible says eternity has been placed in our hearts* and time will never be long enough for my loves to absorb my vast thimbleful of love. I want to love my loves forever. Not only in the space of a lifetime or the overlap of two lifetimes. I want always. I long for forever. And because of Jesus, that’s exactly what I’ll get.
*He has also set eternity in their heart, without the possibility that mankind will find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. Ecclesiastes 3:11
