Mosaic

It’s awkward and uncomfortable, this breaking up into a million pieces.

 

Growing up, passing through the major life changes: marriage, parenting… these events cut a swath through identity.

 

There are times I pause for introspection and see fragments. I see chunks of my identity as a wife, mother, daughter, professional, writer, friend, truck-enthusiast, Christian, teacher… but have difficulty putting all the chunks together to see the finished product.

 

Two weeks ago my identity exploded, once again, into a thousand fluttering pieces as a child entered into our every day.

 

Those shards of identity, if left on their own, without form, can cut and break easily. Yet when combined with other bits and pieces of personality, interests and experiences, become a true masterpiece of emotion, longing.

And completion.

 

This destruction of my identity pushes me toward both sacrifice and selfishness; courage and weakness.

 

As I put myself back together, I discover that love, yes, the all-encompassing, bone shaking, thrilling LOVE expands to fit and it becomes a relief to gather the fragments of self and see a pattern, stitched together with care.

 

All of the pieces, the glittery pieces, rays of brilliance, bits of dirty rock, marbles, glass, soda pop lids… somehow all this mess of living melds into something new.

 

Something surprising.

 

Something unpredictable. Difficult. Easy…

 

Something contradictory. Counter intuitive…

 

Something called life.

 

I want my life to be a mosaic, finding usefulness in things that are jagged and difficult, turning them into a joy to behold. Beauty.

 

I’m willing to be broken.

 

(And I pray that in the scary parts – the ones where I’m on a roller coaster, hurtling toward the ground at unbearable speed – I pray I will throw my hands in the air with abandon!)