Mabel gifted us a beautiful cross-stitch of the Twenty-Third Psalm and went so far as to have it matted and professionally framed.  When we took it home I knew exactly where I wanted to hang it; right outside of our bedroom door in the hallway so that every time we walked out, it would be the first thing we saw, reminding us of the gift, the giver and the promise it contained.

I AM NOT A HANDY MAN

I didn’t look for a stud to put the nail to hang the picture.

I didn’t even put up a super-duper wall hanger that would have been just as sturdy as nailing it into a wall stud.

I just eyed it up and put a nail in and hung the piece of art.

I have no idea why framed art like that has a way of falling down at 3:00 a.m. instead of 3:00 p.m. but that’s exactly what happened and when I heard the crash, I knew immediately it wasn’t a burglar, but a poorly hung picture.

We all have that picture, don’t we?  It is the picture that each of us have been gifted or maybe even painstakingly painted ourselves; and not only paint but we frame it; we make sure we put it in the best of mats and it has glare-less glass over top of it so we could see it from any angle without any kind of shadowy, distorted glares. This preciously framed picture is the only one of its kind.  It includes those we have put in our picture, who have made up our lives and painted all of the intricate strokes that would have made it impossible for us not to be US.

It is reflective our pristine PLAN  A with no forethought of any kind of a PLAN B

It is THAT PICTURE, the one and only un-replicated ONE that we treasure most; that most often falls from the wall, no matter how it seems to be secured. The one-of-a-kind-picture that we have painted for our lives, for our family, for our loved ones; it’s that picture that we hang on the wall and whether we first find a stud or whether we wall anchor it, somehow, someway, that picture, usually in the middle of one of the dark nights of our souls, without any warning whatsoever, falls and gets 100% obliterated; it gets smashed, the glass, the frame, the mat. The Vision.

The actual picture itself gets destroyed and we never can put it back together again because it is that obliterated.  Isn’t that our life?  It doesn’t matter how many goals we have set.  It doesn’t matter how many New Year’s Resolutions we’ve made and actually kept; It doesn’t matter how expensive the pen we’ve used to write our script on a mystical pad; it doesn’t matter how we dream, we wish, we deem it all to be; IT IS HOW it all turns out to be, despite of all of those other concerted efforts.  OFTEN it does not turn out to be that way.  OUR WAY.          .          .

We are all a collection of jagged, smashed pieces; broken pictures fallen off the wall; constantly attempting to gather and putting together pieces that never can be put together again.

THE WORST PART.            .            .

We seldom see the good news of the never-to-be-put-together-again-picture we’ve held so dear to us.

THE TRUTH.          .          .

Sometimes it takes a good picture smashing to have what could have never been imagined.  It may never be expensively matted, framed or professionally hung, but in living-vivid-color, it’s as real as your heartbeat and more desperately needed than your next breath.

The picture of the PRESENT MOMENT is never perfect, but it is very real and even more,

EvOlViNg.          .          .

It just could be THAT PICTURE might be better than the one that we put on the wall,

 the one we grieve the most;
Crooked as it may be
keeps us from seeing
THAT PICTURE.          .          .          .