What is Missing?

My girls are so excited to be back in the States and able to take part in Halloween activities. Their church holds a trunk or treating festival where kids can walk around the church parking lot to various cars with decorated trunks. This year the girls are going as a pirate and her parrot.

We always tried to have a costume party here on Halloween and the kids worked long hours on constructing homemade creations. Not having access to storebought costumes or even hobby stores forced them to be much more creative and I think it really stretched their abilities as artists.

One thing that we couldn't really do here was carve pumpkins for jack o' lanterns. The pumpkins here are grey and not very pretty. Last year we put together a papier mache jack o' lantern to use as a pinata. We learned a valuable lesson: Always fill the pinata with candy after spray painting. Take it from us--paint flavored candy is not so yummy.

Anyway, all that to say, Jennifer and Jessica were so thrilled to have the opportunity this year to carve their own creations. Jessica posted hers on Facebook yesterday. As I looked at it I struggled to see what the design was. Even with a clue about a missing curly tail I still didn't see it. My daughter told me what it was but still, I looked and looked and nothing! Finally my son sat down with me and pointed it out.

Voila! A cat!

I had been focusing on the missing pieces and not the remaining pieces. What a great metaphor for life. When we walk around looking at all the missing things in our life we miss out on the big picture.

Have a great day everyone and stay safe tonight.