Magnum Opus

Sometimes in autumn I wake my children early to look at the stars. We stand huddled together admiring the handiwork of the universe, and feeling comfortably small in the greatness around us.

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I have no great work to point to, myself - no book written, no stellar career, no large paycheck to my credit or marqueed accomplishments.

But, I can still be an agent of change in all the small places. I can find contentment in smallness, knowing that little acts of goodness also contribute to a life well-spent in this big universe of ours.

I can still offer the world gestures of attention and affection and be of service.

I can support a child in Ethiopia and write her letters dreaming along with her of her hopes of one day going to university.

I can visit my mom for coffee, and take a friend to lunch for her birthday, and listen to another whose loved one is recently diagnosed with cancer.

I can open my home for a Christmas party and lead a Biblestudy on Wednesdays.

I can invite family over to celebrate my mother-in-law's seventy wonderful years with a simple tea party.

 

 

 

 

I can concede to having my backyard overrun with whooping and hollering children who want nothing more than a raging Nerf battle.

I can drive the carpools and bring the snacks and oversee the management of our household and the five educations in progress.

I can get the groceries and ponder what to do with them and humbly ask advice from better moms who don't feed their kids chili dogs, spaghetti, and tacos.

I can be a soul open to wonder.

I can gaze at a sunrise and relish the cooler autumn temperatures and the way my bare feet feel on the cool pavement.

I can bask in the night sounds of crickets and marvel at the patterns found in flowers.

I can listen to the rain fall.

I can collect words in a journal and wonder if they will ever amount to anything, or if the joy is to be found in the simple act of noticing and savoring.

Sometimes when a magazine from my university shows up in the mail, I have a moment of smallness- not the good, content, all-is-right-with-the-world Anne of Green Gables kind, but the jealous kind. When I scan the list of awards and careers and causes I have a moment when I wonder if I am doing enough, or if the things I am doing count in the black hole of need in the universe. I have this same feeling as presidential debates blare and world concerns are argued. What on earth am I doing?

But when I am quiet and still and sit with this question, I am reassured that my magnum opus is to know God and follow Him however He leads, be it on a platform with a microphone, or hidden in thousands of small ways, and trust that if the assignments seem right to Him, then they are the best ones for me. He is the best judge of what a life well-lived should be. Of what my life should be.

I've recently finished a book by Lysa Terkeurst entitled The Best Yes. In the final chapter she talks about a legacy being built one choice at a time. This has given me perspective. I am not looking for one thing to give me identity, but a life filled with faithful and good choices, one moment at a time. He is my identity. My life will be well-spent for Him.