My life is in what some of my friends call "a season of change." With all due respect, when they tell me this I am just barely restraining myself from smacking them. I hold myself back only by reminding myself that they mean well. They wish only to remind me that things will get better someday, that someday I may feel less in turmoil. I know that they're right. But right now, it doesn't feel that way.
Right now, it feels like all of my dreams are being ripped from my hands and dashed to pieces, as if I am scrambling on the ground, gathering the broken bits to myself but finding only pain on their sharp edges, rather than healing.
This week, I paused in my metaphorical attempt to gather the pieces and put them back together the way they were. "Why," I asked myself, "would I put these things back together the way they were if that likely means they'll just be ripped away again?" Still, I couldn't bear to just throw away all of the pieces. Some, after all, still seemed worthwhile, like my dream of someday teaching.
So, I did the only logical thing: I prayed. And by prayed, I mean I cried, I yelled, I ranted, I let God know exactly how I felt about losing so much. Then, I listened. I was reminded of a high school trip to Spain, and of my favorite place there: Park Güell in Barcelona. Everything in Park Güell is covered in trencadís (Catalan word meaning "brittle"), a mosaic created from broken shards of tile.
Although the entire park is made of broken tile/pottery, it is the most beautiful man-made thing I have ever seen. I decided then to pray over which pieces of my dreams to salvage and utilize to create new dreams, and which to throw away.
My life is currently somewhere between those two pictures, somewhere between shattered on the ground and pieced into something beautiful. If we were honest, we all spend most of our lives in this "work in progress" space. At times, a piece of the mosaic will come together, but it doesn't take long to realize that there is still more to do.
