COMPLETE (Five Minute Friday)

My mum used to wear an acid yellow sweatshirt with an enormous green tortoise on the front. Above were the words: ‘Please be patient…’ and on the back: ‘…God hasn’t finished with me yet’! She loved that sweatshirt. It was warm and comforting in more ways than one.

I loved it too. As a grey haired, little old lady, it looked quite incongruous on her but it so suited her personality and the yellow was as bright as her smile. The words gave her hope and now they do the same for me.

My personality type is such that I like things to be finished, complete, perfect. I like getting to the end of the day with all the things on my To Do List ticked off. I like a novel that finishes with all the loose ends neatly tied up. I can’t leave the house in the morning for work until I’ve got everything else needed done. I can’t leave a piece of writing (my own or others’) with spelling mistakes or misused apostrophes.

Who am I kidding? It’s not that I ‘like’ things to be like that; it’s nearer to I ‘need’ them to.

So I live with the constant awareness of my own shortcomings, my mistakes, and how many times I miss the bullseye.

However, over the years, I have been learning to view my life in a less black and white, all or nothing way. And I remember that sweatshirt of my mum’s because the message is for me: be patient with myself because God hasn’t finished with me yet. And that gives me such comfort for now and hope for the future.

I have learned that I am God’s Work In Progress, beautiful and meaningful in itself but still being written and edited ready for that final publication.

I am His garden, carefully planted and tended but needing constant weeding, sometimes battered by the elements and needing replanting, sometimes overgrown and needing cutting back, sometimes reaching the end of one purpose and needing a complete redesign to meet a new one. And whatever work needs doing, there is always growth and beauty to be found: a plant that has defied the heatwave to bloom, bulb shoots that have broken free of their cold earthly prison, pale pink apple blossom that has miraculously developed into scarlet baubles of fruit, a rowan tree with its year after year store cupboard of berries for the birds, the symphony of the wind and rain chasing through the trees, the stark elegance of plants’ skeletons against the snow.

God is still working on me and one day I will be complete.

The Five Minute Friday community is a group of writers who gather together to encourage and equip one another. Once a week, we have a blog link up, each writing on the same prompt word for five minutes. You can find out more here: http://fiveminutefriday.com/community/