Inside the Spin-Mosaic Studio

Note: technology is simply unwilling to attach my little illustration to this article today--on this rainy morning. I'm going to beat the odds and post anyways...with the picture right here right now. 

Having my silly illustration not post felt like an echo of the angst that swirled the waters above the figurative bathtub drain of the inspiration of this story in the first place. I will rise above...

It was a small thing. A literally small thing. Could my precious small thing be not lost, please?

If God commands the wind and the waves, 
    and watches the sparrows should they fall, 
    and clothes flowers of the fields,

    and owns the cattle on 1,000 hills,
    and has counted the stars one by one...

These things the Bible says. These small things. These big things. He is in control of them all. He is. 

If God says He hears us when we pray,
    and He sees us even when we stand up,

And, He knows our thoughts from afar,
    and He loves us more than any earthly father,

And, He created all that is natural in this world and called it, "good"...

    Then, why...not...protect this tiny thing that was special to me?

Now, it's gone.

At the end of the day, why not? At the end of two and a half weeks, when it was supposed to have arrived to my friend in the mail...why not? Why couldn't the hand of an angel have been assigned to be sure it arrived safely? Or, was the hand of an angel assigned to be sure it...did not?

This meant a lot to me. Instead, it is lost. Lost in the mail.

I even prayed over the envelope before I slipped it into the hot black box propped up by a fence post by the edge of our rural road with the wobbly sun-faded red flag flipped up.

Yes, I do things like that. Pray over. Mailing my little treasure, our little treasure, away inspired a flash of cold sweat. What if it is lost? Oh, no. It'll be fine.

It seems that faith is not supposed to ask questions of, "Why?", but, accept all? It was a small thing. Why is it sometimes easier to accept a bigger disaster or a medical spiral as, "God's will; God's purpose. All things happen for good." But, for little ole' me, when trivial things go haywire, a thorn of grudge is planted deeper than an average chip in my shoulder despite my best self-coaching.

"What does it matter? Why not let this little detail go right?". I challenge. Then, chide myself for challenging. Peace. Peace.

It was just a small thing...a small thing that mattered to no one else, but me. Guaranteed.

I promise, this tiny treasure being lost or found will impact...nobody. I promise, the course of history will not be changed...if my pebble is safe in my hands or in the hands of my friend, Carol. I promise it's presence or absence will not make it to the evening news or alter world events.

No mountains will move, though it was once my figurative "mustard seed" of faith. What now. Can mountains still move?

If nothing else, it had become the physical image of my mustard seed of faith. You know, that verse in the Bible that says, "If you even have faith the size of a mustard seed, mountains can move!". Can they? My little treasure reminded me.

Trivial. Unnoticable. It would never be missed. The world will walk on by. They already have. There are trillions of other...pebbles. It was not a one-of-a-kind anything. But, it was one-of-a-kind to me.

Me. ME. What a selfish word.

It was not even a precious stone. Any jewelry store would scoff at the idea to carry anything like it. I don't own jewelry with such glories, Iv'e never been gifted glories, nor have I ever been a complex girl who desires such. What I loved was one small pebble. A tiny pebble. Unspecial. Normal. Dull.

Dull...until it shines in the rain.

My little pebble-treasure reminded me to see value in the mundane, beauty in the ordinary and precious in the things we normally pass on by.

It was made special by my son. It caught his eye along the sandy edge of our driveway one day after the rain. Rain makes dull sheen pretty.

This tiny pebble blended in with the beige-gray-clay Indiana sand on any dry day, but shined a translucent honey yellow after the rain. That's what he discovered. And, he brought his discovery to me.

He was about 5 at the time; a ripe age for wonder without doubt or overthinking. He saw it. He stooped to pick it up and ran to me with a gaping jaw and wide eyes--exactly the expression that we adults have learned to suppress. He was clearly crooning and swooning and it squeezed a giggle out of me on a very stoic kind of no-nonsense rainy day.

"Look! Is this a bumble bee egg? It's the color of honey!" It was the color of honey; one tiny glistening drop of sticky golden dew. Except that it wasn't. It was a very average pebble.

In the midst of my stoic mood, a rising tide of righteous indignation did not let truth leak out just yet. He will grow up soon enough. Too soon. Not today, though. I won't let growing up happen today, after the rain, on my watch.

"Wellll...let's take a closer look." I said.

He thrust his open palm so close to my face that my eyes began to cross. "Hmmmm." I hummed. "It's too small to be a dinosaur egg...a bumble bee might be about the right size...".

He held it with two gently cupped hands like he was protecting a fragile infant bunny for about as long as a 5-year old's attention can. It wasn't long. "Here. I want you to have it. It's special!"

He needed both hands to play like the wiggly happy little boy he was. He trusted me to keep it safe. He trusted that I valued it as what he believed it to be--a rare and beautiful bumble bee egg!"

The glowing golden pebble, brown-when-dry, sat in my jewelry box next to my only item of value for 5 years: my black pearl necklace. If ever the pebble were dull when dry, it was dull-er when dry and sitting next to the translucent oceanic-green of a real pearl. Either way, there they sat: the dull and the dazzling. 

Now, my pearl sits alone.

I had an idea to have the tiny worthless, but invaluable, pebble set within a hand-made silver pendant by my friend Carol, a jewelry artist, who prays over every work of her hands and inspiration of her heart. Carol was perfect for this. I sent her my pebble!

A tiny piece of paper was folded into corners. The pebble was slipped inside with the edges taped and sealed within an unassuming white envelope. I had not done origami like this since folding and passing notes in high school.

My legs marched to the road with a sense of righteous mission. It would be my gift to myself for Christmas---a necklace with a pendant that held the most valuable pebble representing childhood and my son's faith in the fullness of it's great and tiny value. The two together translated as "childlike faith" in my mind, highly esteemed by Jesus as a road sign to virtues kin to heaven and peace of heart.

Just a small thing it was. It's been two and a half weeks and the envelope has not arrived to my friend, Carol. It may never. I don't know. Hope is waning. My faith that it will arrive is smaller than a mustard seed and shrinking daily.

What do I do, now? The pebble is gone, but the sentiment is not. My mother always said to turn lemons into lemonade. The story and the truth is still as ever-present as are the promises of our God.

I cannot replace the pebble with another. This pebble and it's story need to remain irreplaceable.

It was the one my son saw. It was the one my son picked up with his own hands and cupped in his little palm. It was the pebble he looked at and looked through, imagining that it glowed like a drop of honey. It was this pebble that nested with my black pearl in my jewelry box for five years.

I will still commission a pendant, designed with intention to embellish and draw attention to...a small empty space the size of a pebble that could be mistaken for...the absence of...a bumble bee egg.

When and if an observant friend notices that, "...the stone has fallen out of your pendant!" that hangs from the chain around this artist's neck, I will tell my story. I will share a key ingredient to faith, which is, after all, present in all visible mustard seeds, but even more potent in the ornate empty socket of a pendant that displays the glory of a lost and preciously dull dry pebble. As Hebrews 11:1 says,

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen."

My pebble will be present in my pendant in memory, but unseen in it's glory, just like the essence of faith. Maybe someday when I get to heaven, Jesus will greet me with an open palm. Maybe in his palm, next to a nail scar, will be my pebble. Found. Never lost to his eyes.

Just now, my thumb scrolled through photos on my device and paused. There it is! -- the picture I snapped quick to show Carol what was coming her way. I had gingerly placed it on top of a nickel to show it's size. 

Faith is not about size. That, we know.

Then, I saw it. And, I choked a bit on my coffee. I saw my pebble resting next to the message... 

"In God We Trust." Is this not also the quintessential essence of faith no matter the size, no matter the hide-and-seek or lost-and-found faith-sized realities that ebb and flow within every circumstance in our lives that requires faith? 

Yes, even faith the size of an empty space in a pendant can move mountains. 

------

A Note from Christi: After a month of not feeling a freedom of schedule to provide peaceful thought-time to write and illustrate, this is the first story that caused me to STOP and want to untangle my thoughts about it all. I have said before jokingly, "I'm not a writer, I'm just an "untangler.'" I write to remember and to untangle thoughts. Then, I feel free-er to move on. The words I wrote above can stand alone, kind of like a confession, but kind of like a stubborn holding of the torch. I always love to hear responsive words, then I know I am not the only human over-thinker. I would rather err on the side of poetic actions and faith-filled ponderings than let the mundane claim my attentions.

This last month, I was up to my eyeballs in an exhibit and a 26-foot 11-paneled ARTwall. See pictures HERE.