By JMathis

The beauty of a pinwheel swirling fervently in a summer wind is self-evident. The individual spokes of color spin together to create fury and majesty, in the backdrop of a young child’s squeals of delight.

Looking back, I wish I had reflected more on the holistic passion and energy of the pinwheel that constitutes the entirety of my life. Instead, my youth and naïveté have led me to dwell too long on any one given color that represents only a singular sliver and season of my days here on earth.

In high school, the green and gold of my high school colors made me feel secure in its familiarity, yet continually lost as I searched for my place in this world. Did I want to be popular? What about being an intellectual? How about a beatnik or a goth?

In college, the blue and orange of my large state school made me feel comforted by its hearty embrace, yet stifled by its uniformity. Is there anything else I have in common with these people other than a deep love for college football?

In law school, the maroon and gold of my small, Jesuit law school enabled me to nestle into the cocoon of an intellectually vibrant community, but with the paranoia that I was a big loser if I did not seek after the big bucks. Maybe the best way to advocate for the homeless is to make a lot of money, so that I can give them a hefty tax-deductible donation at the end of the year?

Now, it is the brown of the poop, the chocolate milk, the spilled coffee and the muddy sneakers that fill the expanse of my days—days simultaneously roiled in both laughter and motherly madness. How am I going to explain to the client that I spilled finger-paint all over his one and only set of original documents I took home to review?

 Life is moving far too quickly for any of us to grasp, ladies. You spend too long on any one spoke of color and you get stuck in a tunnel-vision of greys and blacks, failing to see the all-encompassing glory and magnificence of the spinning pinwheel which represents God’s overarching design and destiny for your life.

 Your life is a pinwheel of color and light, made to glorify your Creator. Spin it with all of your might (Luke 10:27), and step back to gaze at His strength and beauty which faithfully carries you from color to color, winter to spring, despair to delight, aimlessness to divine purpose.

2 Corinthians 3:18. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.