The Big Picture

George Seurat Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

I've been trying to figure out how to begin this entry because I fear I'll have the wrong attitude. Or, the feelings I'm trying to communicate don't effectively manifest themselves. 

However, I'll try.

On the surface, I know that God has a Master plan and we're all part of it. We may not understand it now, but we will later. 

I go back to the analogy of the Seurat painting. If we're all looking at it up close, we just see blurry globs and dots. But it's when we back up and see the "big picture", we realize how each of those globs (yes, even the ugly globs) were an essential part of a huge glorious picture.

You can see part of the composition here, but it's starting to look jumbled.

Back away, and you have Seurat's The Side Show (1888)

Up Close, this looks meaningless and jumbled.

But this whole picture emerges when you back away. This is Seurat's La Tour Eiffel (1889)

And this snippet from YouTube is from Ferris Bueller when they're at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Cameron is looking at the Seurat painting (Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, seen above at top) and the camera continues to show the painting in close up successions until we end up at the jumbled and blurred dots. 

So why this little Art lesson and visual aids?

Well, one thing that has dominated my feelings in the last couple of years is how wonderful parents and wonderful people that are needed on this earth are taken from us prematurely. It happened with my Brother in Law in 2010.

It happened to a friend's mother last Fall. She was only in her fifties, and was recently happily re-married after years of being a single mom to numerous kids while going back to college. Then she is taken within months by pancreatic cancer. Her and her new husband had adopted two of her grandchildren too. 

She was loved and needed and she found happiness.  And then she was gone.

And Chris's mom was only 58 when she passed away in 2001.

And recently, this previous weekend, a loving husband and father of two passes away suddenly. He was only in his 40s...just like my brother in law.

It's frustrating to me, because like I discussed in the 2010 post regarding my brother in law, these wonderful parents and individuals are taken, while the less than stellar ones are still here. I know, I have a lot of issues to work out regarding the fact that I was "blessed" to have a father who was a bully, selfish and abusive. Part of my humor says "Well, of course he is still on the earth. God doesn't want to deal with him! God wants and needs the GOOD people!"

Still, it's frustrating. I know I've been repetitive with that, but saying that prevents me from seasoning this post with more "salty" descriptions.

I'm angry. I'm sad.  My heart breaks for those that have lost loved ones and have to pick up the pieces and miss their brother/sister/wife/husband/mother/father. 

And don't get me started on the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy last month. I am still avoiding seeing pictures of those little babies that were senselessly massacred...and just weeks before Christmas. 

But I have to remember that the anger I feel with these wonderful people being taken from us way before their time is the part of the painting where we are  seeing the jumbled up blurry dots. When the big picture is revealed, these jumbled up dots have their purpose and are part of a huge plan.

It's just so hard sometimes to back away from the painting.