People are not expendable. I think too many times we give up on people because we don't feel they are worthy of our time, efforts or energy. They are not going to bring anything to our already overly complicated, busy lives.
Sometimes, I think we view people as works of art. We see someone's life and we think we know how we can make it better. We take it into our hands what we believe to be this marred painting that is bleak and has nothing to offer and we try to turn it into our own masterpiece. And when we begin to see that the masterpiece is not turning into what we had hoped, we begin to tear it down and shred it up, until all that is left is a million little pieces that we can sweep under the rug. People begin to annoy us, they don't have the qualities we are after, and we wish they would just go away. This masterpiece that we once devoted so much time and effort to, is now just a nuisance. We begin to resent them for not turning into our masterpiece, until eventually, we abandon them and want nothing to do with them - ever.
We took what we saw as a marred piece of art and thought that we could refine it and make it into a masterpiece, when in reality, God is the only one who can do that. We are just merely the medium which God uses... there are so many torn up pieces of art that need to be put back together and accepted for the beautiful masterpiece they already are, the masterpiece that God created.
We cannot abandon any work of art simply because they don't fit into our agenda.
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1 comment:
jess says...
totally true. this is something i've really been dealing with recently and i'm not just saying that. i really hate when i see this in other people--when they see people as just things that get in the way. like a personality clash is a sin??? no! that's a PERSON!!! and i'm ALWAYS afraid of it showing in my own life. i mean...we all have bad days and people are frustrating and seem to add to these things...but here's a thought i've been considering too. my seventh grade class just read a fable about a raven who wanted to be a swan and so it stopped eating so that it could focus its time on becoming something it could never become. and the moral was something like, "one's surroundings do not change one's character." and it hit me...like...i feel like i put off my life sometimes.
like...i'm not saying that "live in the moment" crap. i mean...not that it's crap...but like...what i'm thinking of is that i tend to say, "well, if so and so would just do this, then i would respond better." but...what does that say about me? not much. this is a huge lesson. thanks for bringing it to our attentions.
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