new floors

i have been looking at my kitchen floor tonight... it is the last night i will see this particular floor as we will replace it tomorrow...many feet have walked these floors the stories could cascade out of this particular vinyl i never really liked but put up with for more than 23 years...but the one i want to tell is quite recent... today i had a group of youth over for a bbq... i have been leading them toward a mission trip which begins next saturday... this was the final meeting and last time for me to really be with these students and the leaders who will travel with them...and my floor was travelling away in the morning....so i picked up a sharpie and asked them all to leave some pictures and words on the floor ... it was pretty amusing to see their faces as i offered them the pens... no one had ever told them to write on their kitchen floor...but they were up to the task and soon i had scores of kids writing and drawing all over my floor... the range of skill was broad.. some scribbled... some left little gems of art and word..... let me tell you about one..... there is a young woman in this group who is a cancer survivor somehow in the course of her treatment she had a stroke or some kind of brain injury.... mostly it is evident in a slight limp but there is something about her I can't quite put my finger on what ...maybe a certain clarity to her... perhaps purified by fire? she drew her name and some graphic design-y things around her name but what struck me were these words ...don't be afraid to be different....i still swirl the words around in my brain trying to get a hold on the idea that an eighteen year old girl surrounded by the adolescent world of 'i don't want to be different would write that on my floor... we had just had a painful time of singing a song we really didn't know at the team commissioning that morning.. angry stares and sighs had been sent my way when i insisted we sing this song even if we didn't quite know it and our guitar player was not there to cover up the mess... the comment by some was "the most awkward moment ever" but still this survivor had said don't be afraid to be different sometimes i wonder if that kind of fear [of being different] keeps us from finding our own passion as well as using that passsion in a manner that makes God smile....and us
somehow beauty emerged for just a few hours on the canvas of my old ugly floor...though it will be gone tomorrow i will know that underneath the new tile i chose will be those words don't be afraid to be different...and they will give me courage