Heavenly Sandpaper

Good morning son! Dad and I have been sickies this week but we're rounding the bend and we both rested well last night. Following a week of beautiful weather, March rang itself out with some snow and cold weather. It was cooler but beautiful yesterday. Dad was finally able get out and take a brief walk down the driveway with Jamison and his friend, Sammy. Sammy is spending the week with us this week. He's so much fun and he and Jamison have a great time together. 


Today is April Fool's Day. Dad's feeling a little cheated today. His "partner in crime" for April Fool's Day isn't here. The two of you had some very fun times on this day every year. It was some contest as the two of you tried to top each other every year. I'll bet Alan has something up his sleeve for Kristin again this year too! 

As with many things in our lives these days, next week will be another first. It will be the first time in 38 years I've not made you an Easter Basket or colored and decorated Easter eggs. I'll be content to enjoy the daffodils, and thank the Lord for the Easters we had. I've not been to "your rock" up on the hill since we've scattered your ashes on Christmas day. Easter Sunday will be a good day to do that. No, not because I think you're going to "rise again". Just because I want to.

Hey, guess what I found yesterday? 80's GLAM by Sharpie! Sharpie has some new colors you'd love. Wish I could send you a set but then, what would you use them for. I should have brought your vast collection of Sharpie's with me. I could have left a small shred of memory of you on everything I created! You already have the most amazing colors to use for your art. I mean, I don't think we can even image the colors of heaven. 

As you know, I love to embellish my art. Whether it be a doll cradle, a card, a T-Shirt. Doesn't matter to me, art needs depth. For me, that means, embellish. I can only imagine how the Lord has embellished heaven. I mean, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, gold, silver, saints and angels.  And the real deal. I can only imagine how "bedazzled" heaven is. I mean I cannot even imagine what the "real deal" looks like. I'm bedazzling with acrylic and plastic. I can only dream about what streets of gold look like. The pearly gates. The stained glass windows made with real gem stones. You wouldn't like to send a chip or two to your old mom would you? Just kidding!

Life is kinda like that too isn't it? Bedazzled I mean. Sometimes we don't see it that way, but it really is. Not in the way most of us think of bedazzled, with jewels and precious metals, but in the most heavenly ways. You bedazzled my life. You added depth, joy, challenges (some very interesting challenges), laughter, hugs, smiles, tears. All of those are really the jewels and bedazzlement of life. There are also things and people that bedazzle our lives here on earth everyday: birds, flowers, trees, family and friends. I can just see God adding all those things to the world and our lives here on earth. He's looking down and saying, "Let's put this bird here, he needs the sounds of music today. Let's put this flower here, she needs a reminder of the beauty around her today. Let's put this river here. They need the coolness of the water today". I can just see Him adding these embellishments to his handiwork and us not even realizing what's going on around us.

Easter card with hand painted & crafted; embellished wood egg.

I've been making greeting cards lately and I'm really enjoying it. It's wonderful to really think about a specific person, the event in their life, whether it be a birthday, a new baby, an anniversary, a family or friend who has been taken from their life, and make a card specifically for them. I do spend a lot of time doing research for my cards. Thanks heaven dad's not put off by the hours I spend researching for just the right embellishment to add to a card or item I'm refreshing. Thank heaven he understands that I get a lot of my creative joy by adding just the "perfect" touch to an item that will make it extra special. For me, it's very important that when I give someone a gift, a card or complete a re-purposed piece of furniture or make a special sign, all of them have that very special touch. That's what I consider a card to be, it's important the card tell the person, "I think you're important and I've thought about you when I created this gift with you in mind". Not just, "Oh, yeah, I need to get a card for so-and-so, I wonder what I have on hand I could make work". Yuck! I can just imagine the Lord doing the same for me every single day. He adds a bird to the sky, a squirrel taking a run up a tree or rain falling from the heavens. It's all embellishment. At that moment,it's all for me. It's all pretty cool if you think about it. I'd like to think it's all just for me. I mean, what would our world look like without all those things. Pretty bland I think. No blue sky, no ocean, no seashells, no trees, no flowers, no animals. Pretty bland indeed!

It takes "heavenly sandpaper"...

to polish the coal...

We also have people in our lives. Some good, some not so good.  If I really think about it, the people, family and friends in my life are embellishments too. Some good, some not so good. lol (Yes, I'm including myself!)
I've never considered anyone in my life a frivolous embellishment. Well, maybe. Not intentionally but maybe. I hope not, but maybe. 

People are put in my life for all sorts of reason. Some are there to help polish this piece of coal into a beautiful diamond. Sometimes I want to hug and kiss them, sometimes I want to smack 'em. And I know they feel the same way about me. None-the-less, they are an "embellishment" or jewel that God has graciously, and with a great deal of thought, placed in my life to help me celebrate, grieve, play, work and live. The embellishments on my cards are there to bring happiness, joy, laughter and to show that I've thought about the person, care about the person and want that special person to know all those things. The embellishments in my life God puts there for the same reasons. To bring happiness, joy, laughter and to show that He's thought about me as a person, He cares about me, the person, and He want me to know all those things.

to get the diamond.

So although embellishments are thought of as something glitzy, with no real purpose, they can be, and usually do, give us joy, help us know we are loved, make us laugh, comfort us when we're sad and sometimes help us grow. It's all about how we choose to view embellishment and accept them as God intended. True embellishments, I mean the real deal: diamonds, silver, gold, emeralds, rubies etc., nearly always have to be dug out of the ground. You have to seek them out. You have to go to the right places and know what you are looking for. You don't usually find a diamond at the bottom of the lake or raining down on your head from the sky! You have to seek them out.


Sometimes God uses people in our lives to help us become the "embellishment" in someone else's life. To rub us the wrong way. Your grandma use to say, they're "heavenly sandpaper". Heavenly? Not so sure. Sandpaper? Absolutely.  Some people in our lives are just like sandpaper against a piece of coal. The sandpaper is there to round off the rough edges, help get rid of the dust, and let the real diamond shine through. These people help in filing down the sharp edges, forming the soft, smooth lines of the glittering, gleaming, brightness of the sparkling embellishment beneath the hard surface. The diamond. The "sanding" is often a painful process but one well worth the prize beneath, a beautiful diamond, strong enough to withstand anything that life throws at it. Some of us take more sandpaper than others. Just about the time I think I've had all the "sandpaper" I can handle, I turn around and I'll be darn if God doesn't put another piece of sandpaper in my life. Good grief, do you think I'll ever get to the end of sandpaper in my life? Don't answer that!

Happy Palm Sunday. Rejoice in the Lord!

Until next time, be Aaron, I love you, mom