Nothing Wasted

While writing last week, I bumped into a character I wanted to know, a man I wanted a conversation with. That's how I met Rainie.



The conversation took shape from bits I've gleaned from other characters, real flesh-and-blood types. In several places recently, I've been reminded of our very powerful fear of failure, of making such a mess of things that nothing (or no one) could ever pull the shattered bits back together again. I see this in myself, my fear that I'm going to screw something up or squander something or get something or other irretrievably wrong. I see this obsession in others as well: on the back side of life, it can be an unrelenting regret that murders the soul and on the front side of life, it can be an unyielding drivenness that, well, murders the soul.



We are convinced that if anything is to happen with our life, we are to make it happen. We are convinced that mistakes are the grand enemy, those dementors of our best laid plans. I believe these bewitching notions are as lecherous as they are common.



However, if Scripture tells us anything, it tells us this: God, ever the creator, makes much of little. Sometimes God makes much of almost nothing. We can live foolishly by flittering our life away. We can also live foolishly by always fearing how we might be flittering our life away. I'm tempted to provide the expected caveats to this line of thinking, but I won't. Not here. Sometimes, words need to stand alone. Sometimes we need to fret less about how we're living and get on with actually living.



I believe this: with God, nothing is wasted or ultimately ruined. Nothing.