Another Job Description of God

Throughout the Bible, God is given many names describing His many attributes.  God the Provider, the Healer, the Deliverer, the Father, and on it goes.  But not only are His attributes described, He is also given job titles so that we can better relate and understand Him.  God the Creator, the Potter, the Refiner.  By describing him in terms of jobs we already comprehend, it gives us a glimpse of His love for us and His work in our lives, even unnoticed or unacknowledged.

I'd like to add another job description of God's that He has repeatedly done in my own life: Fine Arts Restorer.  Yes, God is indeed the Artist.  And yes, we...you, me, all of us from Adam to the last human that will be all are fine arts.  We are beautifully, wonderfully, fearfully, and uniquely made by one singular  Master.  He knows our every flaw and feature.  He knows our insides and outsides better than anyone because He designed and made us.  No doctor, no parent, no spouse will ever know us more completely than He.  But the Artist also knows that these fragile lives, hearts, spirits, bodies, and minds can be...WILL be...broken.  But He has no fear.  He remembers how each of us was made, how we function best, the lovely and quirky personalities He gave us.

And He knows how to fix us.  He knows how to take a heart that has been shattered into pieces too numerous to be counted and make it beat again.  He can take complete and utter brokenness and make it whole again.  He can take a spirit filled with deep and unrelenting pain and restore that spirit to feel and share love and light and hope from a place of total darkness.  Best of all, He makes the Art...us...me, better than before.  The thing about God's art restoration is that while it is complete and total and perfect, scars may still be visible.  He knows that.  He's okay with that.  He still sees His masterpiece.  He ALLOWS the scars to be seen, that His art may point back to the Artist and say, "Yes, I was destroyed.  But see how I am beautiful again? He is why." 

For you see, I have known too many people I looked at as flawless.  I thought they could never understand my circumstance, my pain, my broken places.  But then I listened.  I spoke with them.  I found out the gorgeous person with the beautiful figure and long flowing hair has diabetes.  I also found out that, as pretty as she was, her spirit, her strength, and her personality were far more beautiful.  I almost missed out on a dear friend because I was intimidated by her.  I found out the uber-mom who homeschools and sings and plays guitar and seems to have unending patience miscarried twice before birthing her four awesome kiddos.  How many times have we discovered the ones we hold in such esteem, whether we know them or gaze at them from afar, that they have been utterly lost and crushed? 

On and on and on it goes.  The flaws, the broken places repaired in the Hands of the Master, those are all okay.  More than okay, they are beautiful.  The Artist never intended suffering, death, loss to be a part of our story.  But He found a way to work His beauty from our ashes, His joy for our mourning, His masterpiece from our sorrowful rags.  I have felt so covered in ash, in rags, in sorrow twice in my life.  Deeply and profoundly sad and without direction.  I have felt unfixable.  I have felt so adrift that I was unrecoverable.  I have felt that surely God's mission changed from search and rescue to search and recover.  But He never did.  He has always still steered.  He has always still fixed.  And He has always, always, ALWAYS still found me.  I don't know how.  I don't even always know why.  I certainly don't understand the pain or the circumstances and truly never will. 

But I do know this.  He fixed my brokenness once.  He gave me joy again once.  He restored my shattered heart into beating and functional and full and blessed and yes, even happy, once before.  Why, oh why, would an Artist spend so much time painstakingly creating, then restoring a masterpiece to throw it all away when it shattered again?  He wouldn't.  He isn't.  Every tear that pours from my eyes is testimony that I am still here and the heart within my still feels.  Every morning I wake up is another day God is restoring and repairing me.  Every hug, every kiss, every kindness to and from me is another piece put back with loving care.  I don't know how it all plays out in the end.  But I know that I can never break so big that the Artist cannot find and hold and restore all the pieces.

My son is my guide

I have been going through a REALLY rough time lately.  What I want, hope for, expect, pray for, etc. are not lining up with my current reality.  And it's been going on for a while.  Feeling betrayed by my own body, questioning why things are the way the are, wondering if I should just give up.  I am trying to keep a positive outlook and attitude.  But some days, it's easier said than done.

Lately, my son has not been wanting to read the Bible at night before bed, as our usual routine used to be.  Tonight, he acquiesced. And tonight, the passage from his children's Bible was exactly what I needed to hear.  It's always been one of my favorite reminders from God.  But I guess I've forgotten it as of late.  "Consider the lilies..."  Oh yeah.  If God takes care of, provides for, feeds them...and not only provides but makes this fleeting thing more beautiful than Solomon's robes...how much more will He care for, provide for, feed...me.  And how blessed does He want my life to be?  He wants to give me beauty for ashes.  He wants to give me joy instead of mourning.

Then...oh, the waterworks!  Most nights, when my son prays, it's a very rushed, habitual prayer of the same words that are only distinguishable because of habit.  "Dear-God-please-bless-mommy-daddy-and-me-in-Jesus-name-Amen."  Like...all. one. word!  But tonight...tonight he prayed from his heart.  I don't know what it is, but the sincere prayers of a little heart are so full of hope and life and expectation!  There is no fumbling with trying to sound worthy or meek.  The prayer was bold and precious and yet gentle.  And you know what?  He will ask me tomorrow morning if God said yes to his prayer yet.  Because he believes!  Oh to have faith like my child! 

I want to remember...the promises of God are Yes and Amen!  I want to try to have faith like MY child.  I want to expect and boldly ask.  I want to not be so jaded and broken that I quit asking or daring to hope.  I want to quit rationalizing that, since the answer has been no up to this point, that it will probably always be no.  I want to believe again. 

I know I am blessed.  I have never doubted that.  I know not to ask "why me" because the truth is, "why not me?"  I am not so special as to be given a free pass from pain or suffering.  Especially when that is where God's glory is best and most revealed.  I know I am so blessed, so why shouldn't I be attacked by the enemy at my heart's most tender points?  I am not Job.  Heaven knows I am not holy enough to be Job.  Nor have I suffered as he and I will not pretend to have.

Job continued to believe.  My son continues to believe.  Why shouldn't I? 

Considering lilies...