LIFE LEAVES SPACES…

I had a tooth pulled this week, an interesting experience to say the least.  First my mouth was numbed with novacaine. Then the dentist pulled, tugged, twisted and rocked the tooth until he finally pulled it loose.  Thankfully all I felt was a whole lot of pressure, no pain. As I sat there, tense and trying to calm myself, I couldn’t help but think that there is a lesson God has for me in here somewhere.  Something having to do with deep rooted things being pulled out of my life; deep rooted, but not good things.  Hard to remove, some healing needed after they're gone; some getting used to the empty space....  

The next morning as I prepared to check the email at work my attention was drawn to an ad loop running on Yahoo for American Express.  “Life leaves spaces…”  I was hooked, since I was still dealing with the healing of a very physical space in my upper mouth.  The loop continued to the next screen:  “Life leaves spaces… for you to create in….It’s not just a card; it’s a canvas”. 

Who volunteers to have a tooth removed?  Who opts for pain and the need for healing afterward?  But life leaves spaces.  Empty spaces open up in our lives as God rearranges things.  “Why God?”  I often ask.  “I don’t like change.  Why can’t it stay the same?  When will it go back to ‘normal’?”

I think God is showing me that he is the one who opens up spaces for him and me to create in.  Those spaces are not a tragedy, an “oops” on God’s part, or even bad luck, but an opportunity, a blank canvas for what he is going to paint next, or have me paint next.  I am not an artist, but I do love to write.  I love the feeling of sitting down with a fresh piece of blank paper (or a new document page in Word) and starting to compose.  I am praying that God will help me to remember what he has shown me with this tooth extraction and the empty space it left in my mouth. Life leaves spaces for me and for God to create in.  It's not just a loss, a lost tooth, a lost ???, its a canvas for him, for us, to draw, paint, write, sing, dance something new, something beautiful, something to bless and not to harm.  Something from his heart to ours.