I fingered
through a stack of photographs wondering exactly how fast I could organize
them.
My goal was to
get them in chronological order, slide them into a photo album and label them,
all in thirty minutes.
I had a nifty
little, unplanned, delightful one half hour and I was determined to fit this
big task into that little window.
There were
birthday photos, vacation and graduation.
I stopped for just a moment looking at my graduate, my eldest.
Back in the
days when he was my only every photo demanded a coordinating sticker and a bit
of journaling.
Now, a title
and often just the month and year suffice.
Rarely do I take the time to pinpoint an exact date and it’s been years
since stickers have been appropriately stuck to anything in my home.
I was on my
last few photos when I realized there was a photo envelope I had missed.
It looked thin;
perhaps the damage wouldn't be too bad.
Surely I had forgotten some event between events; it wouldn't be the first time. I held my breath hoping whatever was hiding
in that envelope would politely be chronologically after everything already in
the album.
Technically it
wasn't, but technically it wasn't destined for a photo album either. It was one lovely black and white photo, a ‘framer’.
My husband had
edited and carefully separated it for one special frame.
My thirty
minutes had expired, but I stole another five minutes. This chore would make me late for an evening
event but sometimes being late is just worth it.
I ran
upstairs, photo in hand. There hung the
frame. It looks very much like a window
pane. In each pane is a photo of one of
my three oldest children riding a carousel.
The carousel is very far away, the photos taken some five years
ago. The frame hangs on my bedroom wall
above an old trunk. The trunk is a
sturdy, beautiful thing and strong enough to hold my youngest daughter as she
climbs it just to view these four photos.
Three dedicated to the three oldest, and one group shot. I had promised Ava over a year ago that we
would replace that group shot with a picture of her. She enthusiastically agreed, but only if it
was on that carousel and she has reminded me of that promise, from the top of
the trunk, almost daily.
I was joyful
thinking about how much this photo would surprise her. She was riding the exact same carousel.
I hastily
replaced the photo, re-hung the frame and the children and I were off to our
engagement. For the moment, I had to
forego my surprise.
Many hours
later Ava was just dropping off to sleep when I saw the frame on the bedroom
wall in the dusk of evening. The haste
of the day had allowed me to forget, as haste often does.
I whispered to
Ava asking if she wanted to see a surprise.
She smiled. I gathered her up in
my arms. I stood her on the trunk and
she looked. She is never easily
satisfied. She questioned whether it was
the same carousel and the same horse as her sister and her brothers. I nodded my head again and again as she hung
on every word. My baby daughter is
fiercely independent, fiercely original in all that she does, but she wants to
fit in. We all do; I see me in her.
I laid her
back in bed, a smile resting on her sleepy lips; for just a moment I had that
sense of a job well done but it was fleeting.
I got out of
bed yet again. I stood in front of the
trunk to see more clearly. Ava now wears
the clothes that Lily was wearing in the photo.
She fits them. She fits us.
I so often try
to fit. I fit time into small
boxes. I fit chores into little
windows. I fit devotions in between
everything else. I fit prayer into the
gaps and gasps of life.
Then as I
returned to my bed, replaced my covers, the glare of the moon lighting four little
window panes of photos; I wondered where
I fit? When you adopt a child, you see fitting
in a whole new light. A child is FIT
into a family in an extraordinary way.
She or he may not resemble their parents but they miraculously are a missing
piece to the family puzzle; one that existed in the heart.
My heavenly Father
adopted me; He adopted you. Shouldn’t I
see that even more clearly as an adoptive mom how I fit into His family, His
plan? Yet I run from chore to chore,
task to task, person to person, waiting for the time I will have time. He created time. He caused me and you to live at this time for
His purpose and He never makes anything too small or too big, too young or too
old, too late or too early. He creates
us, ALL of us in his perfect image. Can you imagine? We reflect Him. We miraculously fit into this great
masterpiece that is life. We bring
color, light, darkness, texture, all to point each and every eye down to the
bottom corner of life to see His signature.
I don’t want
that audience to see me rush, to see me worry or to see me hastily run through
this thing called life and not step back and breathe it in. I want to FIT exactly in this time, this
space for His purpose and to be the lens by which His light can shine
through. I don’t have to worry about the
size of frame; I need to focus on the
image within.
It is that
image, His heart beating within mine that is the perfect fit.
“If he gives you the grace to make you believe,
he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterward."
Charles Spurgeon
“That in the dispensation of the
fullness of the times He might
gather together in one all things
in Christ, both which are in
heaven and which are on earth—in Him.”
Eph. 1:10
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