I am His masterpiece .. both in process and finished

When I think about something called a Masterpiece. I think of paintings, sculptures, or embroidered wall hangings. The finished product displayed for all to see. But what we don't see is the other side of the work. Art takes time, and is usually messy. When we see the beautiful display of a painting hung in a gallery or a home, we don't see the studio. The painters splattered smock, the palette where he mixed his colors, the paper where he blotted paint to get the excess off, or the muddy water used to rinse his brushes. When marveling at a sculpture, we usually don't see the notebooks of sketches, the floor strewn with discarded  clay, the stained apron. We don't see what was discarded to create the final beautiful piece. We don't see the artist studio, just the finished work. And we can forget the long and messy process that creating beautiful things can be. 

Years ago, I heard someone talk about life, and how it is similar to an embroidered wall hanging. It has two sides. The one that is complete and beautiful and calm. And the other, that is jumbled, and crisscrossed, with hanging strands of thread, and random knots. And if you were to walk into a studio and only see the back, you would think the craftsman was not really a master of his work, that he was sloppy, and had no finesse. But then, you see the front and realize you were not seeing the full picture. You were seeing the process, and not the finished product. 

I think our lives can be like that. Jumbled, messy, with no real pattern. Sometimes we feel more like the smudged paper than the finished painting, more like the floor of the studio and not the finished sculpture. We might even feel like we got left in the kiln to long. And when we look at our lives from our perspective it can look like the back of that embroidered wall hanging. Lots of colors, lots of knots, and strings that seem to go nowhere, and no sense of plan or order or purpose. But that is because we don't see the whole picture at once, the finished product. In the bible it says that we see through a glass darkly. And while that verse seems to refer to understanding and knowing God, I think it can apply to our lives in general. Here on earth, in these frail bodies, we can't see clearly. But one day, we will. 

And the best part is, no matter what part of the masterpiece you feel like, God loves them both. He loves you in the process, in the mess and smudges, and knots, and he loves the you that will be finished and beautiful in due time. And, he also knows, that it often takes the mess, to get through to the beauty. I believe that one day, we will be able to look back and see the other side of the masterpiece and see how it all fit together into a beautiful work of art. And it will be worth it all.