© Jesper Brandt

Sometimes we have love and sometimes we lose love. Sometimes love can hurt terribly like a deep wound. In our world we have lots of ups and down, pleasures and pains. But that’s life and we learn to accept the bad with the good. Without the bad times we wouldn’t appreciate the good times. Life is precious and I cherish ever single moment. – Sailor Moon

A newly married woman I know worried that her husband was going to leave her because there was so much drama in her life. Family and friends were constantly asking for her help with serious issues and there seemed to be no end in sight to the bad tidings.

It turned out that she did not have to fret for one moment about her husband’s commitment to the marriage. It was her way of engaging in the messiness of life and not turning away from helping others – getting her hands dirty as it were, that he adored and loved about her most. He knew also that if the time were to come when he needed help, she would be right there at his side.

Consider a mosaic: shards of glass, stone or tile are set together in such a way as to form an image. If all the pieces are white – no picture is evident. Add a few fragments of light yellow or beige and perhaps the beginning of an image appears. But add some black and glittery gold to the work and now you start to have definition from the contrast between the light and the dark. Further, when you add shards from the entire color palette, a vision emerges that has depth, intensity, and profundity. We have only one chance to create the image that is our life. It can be shallow or it can have depth. The choice is ours!

© Jesper Brandt