Fragments

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 (ESV)

For several hours yesterday I sat in front of our computer and looked at pictures of my daughter Alli’s twelve-week semester in Africa. They were digital fragments, a single sentence out of a life-changing story. They were static images of dynamic moments.

A fragment. Just a piece, a small piece of the whole. A splinter off an entire board. A journal entry without a history.

I know in part; then, someday, in ways too powerful and beautiful for words, I will know fully.

The apostle Paul’s words explode across the page, yes, today we know only in Fragments, 400-word sound bites that expose only one piece of the breathtaking mosaic, only one brush stroke of the masterpiece, only one measure of a brilliant symphony.

That’s why. Fragments. It’s all I know. It’s all I can comprehend. It’s all my mind could contain. But it is why I write. It is why one week I write of my struggles, one week I express my joy, and one week I plumb the depths of pain, it’s just a part, my one-week thread in the tapestry of life.

But make no mistake, fragments fit. God the Father takes ownership of the context that provides the perfect place for every piece to slip appropriately into.

God makes a flawless quilt out of the patches of our lives. We see only isolation; He, and He alone, sees the symmetry and majesty of the whole.

Now in part, but some day I will know fully what the sweeping brush strokes of life created, until then, Fragments.