The incessant tick, tick, tick of the timer wavered in between folly and just plain panic. I mean, it’s challenging enough just to pinch-ahold of those little critters. Okay, not really critters, more like twenty-five, three-dimensional, plastic molded, every-shape-known-to-man puzzle pieces.
The world’s largest toy maker, Hasbro Inc., named, this game of frantically plugging the world’s smallest geometric shapes into their matching counterpart, Perfection. It’s not so much the matching that gets the better of the player, it’s more about the fear of failing to beat the clock. If the competitor doesn’t correctly fit each piece, the timer dings and WHAM! The entire foundation of the playing board rockets up tossing each plug from its perfect little place.
When our children were younger, they would invariably cram the crescent shape into the half-moon opening and the parallelogram into the triangular opening. These fumbles would syphon the time and the ticker would hyper-tock as panic chased sanity out of the room. Now that’s a fun time right there!
Unless, of course, someone presses the pause button and then, ah, grace is applied.
Have you ever been there?
Given your best effort. Tried to be and do and fit into all the right places and patterns and somehow the corners never come together? Feeling as if you’re the only piece of the puzzle without a connection.
Maybe you’ve never felt comfortable in your position and every other day your emotional heartbeat imitates that obnoxious timer. The unsettling leaves you feeling anxious and undone counting the ticks until the foundations lets loose.
You are not alone.
Can we just agree that humans are human and humans are NOT perfect? Whew! Cut the cake, call your three friends, and start the party! ☺ Some of you are really laughing…you know how to call it like it is!
Remember the button? The grace button? Grace is the giving of what we don’t deserve yet God gives freely to all who believe.
So you feel you don’t fit.
You can’t match the others.
Your corners are jagged…there’s the whole obtuse scenario…you get it, right?
Good news! It doesn’t surprise God. He’s completely aware that we are not perfect. Many have lived long enough that life’s game-board has tossed them up and out pretty good. You know, many people justify spending a pretty penny on finely distressed furniture because they see the beauty in its story. And we, who are created through the master artists’ hands also show the depths of scarring. Beautiful flaws, grief engravings that make us unique and priceless. The beautifully flawed are some of the wisest, authentic, most treasured people. These, I listen to. These, I trust. These are resilient because of grace.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” -Ephesians 2:8-10
Settle into your space and embrace grace. Be your best at what you are good at, this is your gift. Stop focusing on the timer, its job is to make you anxious.
The game of life. The strategy and perspective we implement can make all the difference when the foundation feels compromised.
Keep in mind, you know all about the button so hold on and enjoy the moments.