My Board of Grace

"The board itself doesn't impact reality; what changes your life is the process of creating . . . "  Martha Beck

Vision Board (page one)

Once upon a time, I reluctantly set out to complete what I believed to be a cheesy little arts & crafts project, and wound up (much to my delight), on a spiritual journey.

As a one-little-word traveler, I was prompted to create a vision board - a personal collection of representative words and images, of things or concepts, that I'd like to welcome into my life. In theory, a vision board is a poor man's Field of Dreams . . . if you build it, he will come!

I trekked to the book store, grabbed a handful of magazines (the one's with the most fun photos I could find), and headed home to cut and paste!

At some point, it occurred to me that I paid a ridiculous amount of money for magazines I was going to destroy.  I hoped the end result was worth it.

Back on task, I started through the pages, looking for images that spoke to me (made me ooh! or ah!).  Nothing!  Struggling, I reread the directions, followed the suggested links, and tried again.

This time, to my surprise, I finished with a substantial collection of words, images and phrases. I spread them out, and planned how I'd arrange them on paper. I began trimming my treasures to fit the page, but opted to tear them to fit instead.  Go figure!

Vision Board (page 2)

Once finished, I was pleased with myself, but still had a hard time seeing anything more than two fairly decent scrapbook pages.  Humph . . . I must have missed something. I photographed them, and filed them away in my scrapbook. Done!

Two weeks later while lying in bed, I had an epiphany!  The ragged (torn, not cut) words, phrases and images I struggled to mine from magazine pages, are metaphors for goodness - faith, light, love, joy, beauty, courage, creativity. 

In my brokenness, I've struggled to recognize God's blessings, often taking what I have for granted. My vision board was a celebration (my one-little-word) of goodness! In the process of creating the board, I was visualizing God's grace in my life. 

The real miracle of my vision board happened a few days after my mid-night epiphany, when I received a phone call that was so full of goodness, it flooded and mended my wounded heart. The call was an an answer to my prayers, something I thought would never happen.

It worked! My vision board worked! I made it. I prayed it. I dreamt it. It happened. And in the end, it was worth every penny I paid for it.