A Beautiful Mosaic
By Bailey
Living in a community home with a 1 year old has been such a fun and fascinating experience. I’ve had the priviledge of watching little miss Zoe rapidly grow and change over these last months. It amazes me to see how quickly she learns new things. However, learning a new skill such as crawling or walking also includes a lot of failure. I watch Zoe pull herself up on furniture just to fall back down on her bottom dozens of times in a day. Eventually she will pull herself up and stand for an extended period of time. The falling down may seem like a “failure”, but it is a necessary component of learning to stand and eventually walk. She needs to fall to learn how not to fall.
Isn’t it interesting that God created us to enter the world as small, fragile beings that don’t know how to do anything on our own? We are totally dependent on our parents and we must learn how to do everything. This learning includes a lot of failed attempts before we can walk, talk, eat, and play on our own. It’s almost as if we were created to fail. If this is the case, why are we so afraid of failure? Maybe failure is not something to be escaped, but rather an essential growing experience to embrace. We spend a lot of time and mental energy worrying about trying new things or making important life decisions because we want to avoid “failure” at all costs.
Before we came to Montreal in January, we had a lot of expectations about living here and how we would be spending our time. We’ve found that living in community is much more challenging than we ever expected and that our involvement and role in the local church community has not been exactly what we thought it would be. We have chosen not to view any of our experiences here as failures, but rather as moments of stretching and growth that we will take with us into the future. Choosing to let go of the fear of failure allows us to live fully in the present moment and frees us up to say “Yes” to whatever God asks us to do. When we live in this manner, we no longer make decisions out of fear and self-preservation, but out of obedience and love for God and His Kingdom. It’s a joy to follow Jesus in obedience, even when we can’t see where that may lead.
Sometimes my life feels like a lot of broken and fragmented experiences. When I look at the things that have happened to me and the things that God has asked me to do, they often don’t make sense to me. My experiences may seem like random pieces of broken pottery and glass, but I know that God is bringing all of these pieces together to create a beautiful mosaic with my life. To Him, those pieces are not random or unrelated, but they are essential pieces in the larger image. As I continue to learn this lesson, I will choose to move forward in peace instead of fear. I’m not entirely sure what we will do next, but I’m certain that the lessons and experiences we’ve had here in Montreal will play an intergral role.
Please continue to pray for us as our time here comes to an end and ask that God would send his Spirit to be our guide.
Grace & Peace,
Bailey and Kyle Ryczek
