I stopped dead in my tracks – sadness washing over me, pain searing my heart, helplessness booming in my chest.

Lily and I decided to enjoy the brilliant morning sun with a walk through the  neighborhood.  All was well until I saw it – a lost dog poster. How miserable his owners must be!  Lily was secure at the end of her leash; still I identified with the devastation of losing my dog.

We’ve all been there.  We’ve all lost someone or something precious to us.  Life hands us so many legitimate reasons to break down, to remain hurt, to stay a victim.

Human nature encourages us to stay stuck in our grief…to be unwilling or unable to let go of it.  We can live so long in anguish that our lives become a miserable pit of desperation.

And yet – whole comes only after broken.  Healing comes only after wounds.  The sun shines much more brilliantly after the storm.

Jesus experienced the pain of being human.  He wasn’t supposed to be a carpenter – He was a king…to be served and not to be a servant.  But it is precisely because of the work He finished on earth that we are no longer lost.  He reached down from heaven so we’d experience the joy of being found.  To be rescued from a world filled with dangerous turns and welcomed into the safe embrace of His arms. His story wasn’t complete until He brought grace to the world by dying on the cross.

Ephesians 2:10 declares, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus.”  You can’t create a masterpiece without dark and light, harmony and dissonance, uncertainty and resolution.  Even in our difficulties, God is only perfecting His masterpiece.

God made the world and then He came to change it. As an artist, He creates us to be masterpieces full of His love and grace.  Sometimes, racked by grief and despair, we impede God’s refining.  And when we stop short, things seem extremely unjust.

Difficulties are part of the masterpiece we are…the opportunity to learn to see life not as it is, but as it will be.  The world provides darkness with its heartbreaking ways.  God knows every part of our masterpiece – even those dripped heavy with pain.

Make no mistake; there are times we need to grieve deeply.  But with God’s strength, in time, we can take a step back, examine the masterpiece God is creating in us and fall deeply, passionately in love with the Creator.