“Sidewalk Squares”
Sidewalk Squares.
*Instagram Version
Yesterday, while I was walking Charlie, I began to notice the date markings imprinted on different squares in the sidewalk. 1976 would suddenly “meet up” with 1996. A little further down, 1976 would connect with 1994, and so on. The individual squares, formed decades apart, met and became portions of the same sidewalk. Each square so uniform, so part of the whole, yet so dissimilar at the same time.
I begin to think about life… Each experience… Each year... Each season is a “sidewalk square.” Sometimes, we walk through circumstances that don’t seem to “fit.“ They seem out of place in the overall picture of our lives. In the moment, they feel like an anomaly. We sense God at work, but the questions linger: Why that experience? ...that loss? ...that night?
Sometimes, it is not until years down the road that we begin to see the pieces fall into place. 1976 suddenly meets up with 1994. 1985 meets up with 2006. 2015 meets up with 2020.
When we walk with God, we can rest assured that every single piece of our histories, even the “squares“ that didn’t match up will be put to use in the “sidewalk“ ahead. When we place those misfit seasons in the hands of God, along with the rest of our lives, we will one day be walking down the pathway of our future and see that 1999 meets up with 2022. 2003 meets up with 20??... Only God knows when and how He will use those disparate pieces, but those “squares” will eventually fall into place...either in this life or when we look back from eternity. Farther along, we’ll know all know all about it.
I love the words of Corrie Ten Boom: “This is what the past is for. Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future only He can see.”