Right now I am working on a project that is really stretching me in ways I didn't know I could be stretched. So after a very frustrating day of not getting much accomplished I sat down last night to have a small pity party. I happened to be in the living room where our Christmas tree is and as I stared at its beauty the thought popped into my head....well at least there is one thing I can do.....I know how to decorate a Christmas tree!

All of a sudden I got some "incoming" thoughts about just how I had decorated that tree. First I had to select a tree and then bring it home and then the decorating went in stages....lights, ornaments ( best first), beads, tinsel ...you get the picture. There were stages and if I had stopped at any point I would not have beheld the finished project and it's beauty the way I was doing at that moment. Okay Lord I understand maybe my "project" is in a very early stage and I am seeing no beauty in it whatsoever! I get it. Hang in there until it is complete and see what it looks like then.

The tree however continued to play with my imagination. I started to think of how many people had a part in my Christmas tree. God of course with the life of the tree, but someone planted it, pruned it and brought it to market ( no I didn't get to go cut one this year). People helped me select it and load it on our SUV. People made the lights and the tinsel and someone shipped those products to the store and stocked them on the shelves. I have spent 40 years collecting the ornaments from all over the world so think of all the people and nations that are represented there. Wouldn't it be fascinating if you could magically pull up everybody that had somehow in someway  been connected to that tree?

And yet the tree is uniquely mine. There is no other tree like it. Even if someone in my family were to take all of the decorations and try and put it together it would not be the same. They do not have the love, or desire, or passion that I do for the Christmas tree. Even though lots of people have had a part in that Christmas tree it is a unique expression of my creativity....a unique expression of who I am. But on the flip side of the coin I couldn't have done it without all those people.

That made me think about my life. I am like the tree. God created my life, my mother birthed me, people fed me and pruned me and "grew" me. Thousands upon thousands have left their imprint on my life in one way or another and yet I am unique...I am me. But the me that I am is also because of the people who have played a part in my life.

Now there's a thought! Everyday people do ordinary things like stocking lights on a shelf, or making tinsel, or pruning trees and they do not realize they are part of a finished work in a beautiful Christmas tree. The same can be said for all that we do in our "ordinary" lives. We touch people everyday and leave an imprint in the clay vessel that they are...either for good or for evil.

Thankfully there is One who is overseeing the entire "project" of my life. He is taking all the broken fragments, the cheap baubles and dingy lights as well as a few spectacular treasures and assembling something that He will be thrilled to stand back and say " I know how to do new creation"