Making something beautiful out of something small

We returned home hideously late last night from our concert, actually not arriving home until 1.40am so I didn't wake up in time for church today as I was experiencing quite a bit of pain the previous day so decided to make sure I was well rested enough. Thus, I was wondering what would my Pause for Lent consist of.

It began with this:

This is my serendipity collage.   I saw an article in a craft magazine a good 8 years ago where they created a card with a Serendipity Square.  They took a whole lot of scraps of paper left over from craft projects and tore them into random jagged shapes with the torn edge left and then glued them onto a large sheet. They then cut squares from the sheet and mounted them onto coloured card and mounted them onto a card.  It looked so effective and yet it came from virtually nothing.  From something that would have just ended up in the recycle bin, if not the bin.

I remembered thinking that I could take this idea and create a Serendipity collage (so named because happy accident led the creator to make something by accident) out of some old envelopes that were going into the recycling anyway.  And so I created the collage above.  This was probably about 8 years ago. I never did actually ending up cutting it into square tiles and mounting it, I kind of liked this sky of different patterned blues as it was.

And then it made me think.  God often makes something big, something beautiful, something really worthwhile or beautiful out of very little or indeed virtually nothing. He might take something fit for the bin and turn it into something which brings joy or pleasure to many people on so many different levels.

It can be so easily to allow small moments, tiny little gestures, little opportunities go but why not embrace them and make something beautiful.

Examples of God doing that include Elijah using the widow's flour and water to survive on and make food for a long time during a famine; Jesus feeding 5000 with loaves and fishes.    The small boy could have easily said that it was ridiculous that his fish and loaves could feed so many yet he gave it a try.

As my day progressed, more and more examples of making something beautiful out of something small, or even doing something small just because of doing it presented themselves to me.

CBC wanted to  toss his banana skin into the bin, having just locked the backdoor. I told him he she should open the door and put it in the compost bucket.  He was most reluctant and said, "I'm not exactly going to save the world by putting one banana skin in the compost."  But I said to him, "Many drops make an ocean and even if we're not making an ocean, we might make a lake, a pond, or even just a puddle."  Maybe just a drop. But those drops can add up to something worthwhile or beautiful.  Compost,  getting into good habits can eventually make an ocean.

I walked to town to go and buy some eggs for lunch and I saw this beautiful set of daffodils adorning a wall on the main road.  The person who planted these essentially planted a set of bulbs. But the joy or brightening, consciously or subconsciously that it will bring to those who pass by, such as myself, is uncountable.

Without giving the game away, I finished this wonderful book today.  And the concept of many drops making an ocean is very appropriate to this.

Perhaps the something small could be smiling at someone as you walk past them.  How do you know that that's not the first time that someone has smiled at them in days.  How much difference can that small gesture make?

Often we give up on things, or don't bother because it isn't big enough, it isn't sufficient or it isn't worth it, it is too small.  But yes, whilst making something BIG out of lots is important or good, we should do the thing that we fear is too small anyway!

So, let's make something beautiful out of something small.

xxx