Life is Like a Sticky Note

I am addicted to sticky notes. I've been known to walk around for a full hour with a sticky note attached to my forehead. The fluorescent colors make me wild, and don't even get me started on the sticky notes that come in the shape of a heart or flower...
I use stickies for a myriad of purposes: to remind me of something I need to do, someone I need to talk to, or something I need to pray about. To mark a powerful part of something I'm reading, something I need to use in my writing, or something I want to use when I teach.

When I was in Uganda this summer working with kids and teachers at an orphanage, it was fascinating to see their reaction to sticky notes. Just the colors and fact they stuck on everything, including skin, was enough to hold the kids spell bound- regardless of the purposes we were trying to introduce for their use. Let's face it- sticky notes are one of the great inventions of the last few decades. If I could personally thank the creator of the colorful little square paper with a glue-like tab at the top I would.

As I ponder the wonders of sticky notes I'm reminded of the picture you see at the top of my blog. I snapped this photo at the end of a gathering I led. We all had piles of sticky notes in front of us, and we silently wrote out sticky after sticky reflecting on what we feared- the voices that plagued our minds reminding us of how we fall short or somehow seem to disappoint God- or the ways we constantly seem to boomerang back to old patterns of behavior we hate.

When we were done writing on the stickies, I asked the group to gather around a table where we quietly stuck them, one by one, on the cross.

At first it seemed a little contrived and weird. Sticky notes on a cross? But when we were done, and the tears were falling, it was actually quite beautiful. Like a Christmas tree that is adorned with lights and sparkles, the cross was now adorned with pain, conflict, and a kind of fluorescent hope.

To be able to put our fears on the cross is the ultimate sticky note. You can write them out, then get rid of them- not needing to keep them attached to your forehead as a reminder of past failures. They now stick to the cross- where Jesus bears their print.

"For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His Cross..." (Colossians)

If you need a little sticky note therapy this week, I encourage you to get a pack and write like crazy. But don't keep the sticky notes around you or on you, put them on a cross.

Blessings-
Gari