Contributed by Sandra Rodriguez
This life is a kaleidoscope of experiences, from celebratory and beautiful to dark and sorrowful and everything in between. It’s been said that life is like a piano: the white keys representing happiness and the black keys representing sorrows. What we need to remember is that in order to make beautiful music, we need both sets of keys.
Both are instrumental (pun intended)! The black keys are the flat and sharp notes in our lives that threaten to discourage and quash our hope and potential. But it’s in these times that we have the opportunity to find out exactly what we’re made of. When we go through dark times and loss, they test everything we think we know about ourselves and many topics. But they can shape, refine and give depth to our souls when we allow their work to be done in us. The white keys are the notes that brighten, encourage, and show us just how incredible life can be.
And so God, the Great Composer and Conductor, uses both light and dark experiences together to create the beautiful symphony of our lives. Yet we are the ones responsible to allow the notes to be played fully and move from measure to measure. If we stay stuck in one place, the music stops or just becomes an ongoing monotonous drone.
“…Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” ~ Psalms 30:5b This is just a reminder to us all that though we don’t desire the dark times in our lives, they will add richness, depth and substance if we allow them to refine us when we embrace them along with the light times. Then God can turn our lives into a masterpiece—the Master’s piece. It may not feel like it right now but trust it to be true. I’m trusting with you!
Sandra Rodriguez is a mother of four and grandmother of one who lives in Colorado. She enjoys singing, dancing, laughing, poetry, and writing third-person bios about herself that exaggerate how artsy she is. (She also participated in the virtual videos created by the East Valley Chorale during Covid-19.)