An Allegory - The Mural on the Wall

After Sandra's family and friends had finished with their lunch, they walked out towards their various pickup trucks that they had filled with furniture and boxes, bid their final farewells and drove off down the street towards her Aunt and Uncle's new home. Sandra stayed behind to load up one last load of boxes into her small pickup. Everyone else had something scheduled for later that afternoon, but she didn't have anything planned, so she had agreed to stay behind and finish up. The furniture was already gone and all that was left was a few boxes in one of the rooms that she was assured were not that heavy.

Once everyone had left, Sandra walked back to the room where the remaining boxes were; a room towards the back of the house that had been used for storage and that she had never actually been in before today.

What was left to move was a single row of boxes stacked about 1/2 of the way up the far wall and a few boxes stacked up to the ceiling covering about 1/3 of the Left side of that wall. On the remaining part of the wall, that was not covered by boxes, a wonderfully painted mural was exposed.

Since no one remained there with her to hurry her along, she took a minute to stand there and admire the mural. At the very top of the mural, there were a few mountains and a thin skyline. About 1/4 of the way down the wall, there was a rather wide river running along the base of the mountains, flowing from Right to Left until it disappeared behind the boxes on the Left. Just slightly Left of the center of the exposed part of wall, another river was flowing down the mountains, cascading down, towards the Left, until it merged with the river at the base of the mountains.

Just past the point at which these two rivers merged, the river divided again. Most of it continued to the Left, yet a much smaller, more narrow stream flowed down from it; this time moving down the wall, slightly to the Right, across a lush green meadow, until it disappeared beneath the boxes in about the center of the exposed part of the wall. The meadow was mainly grass, but also contained a slight sprinkling of trees and some patches of wild flowers in shades of yellow, orange, red, purple and blue and there were also a few rocks scattered here and there.

Soon Sandra began to work and started by removing the boxes that were stacked all the way to the ceiling covering the Left 1/3 of the wall. As she loaded each stack of boxes onto her dolly and wheeled them out to her pickup, more and more of the mural was exposed and it wasn't long before she realized that what had originally appeared to be a meadow was actually an elevated plateau and on the Left 1/3 of the wall was a very deep canyon. The river that was flowing Right to Left along the base of the mountains became a tall water fall, plunging violently over the high cliff and crashing down hard onto the rocks below, into the highly turbulent, rushing rapids that then very quickly hurried off the bottom Left hand corner of the wall.

Curious about the rest of the mural, Sandra continued to move the remaining boxes until her work was done and the entire wall was exposed.

The narrow stream, that had split off from the larger one and flowed down and slightly Right, towards the center of the wall, continued to flow down and Right along the meadow, twisting back and forth a little, and occasionally cascading slightly over some of the rocks, yet mostly flowing Right along the plateau, until it flowed gently into a small lake, down at the bottom Right hand corner of the wall; a rather lovely tranquil pool of water, surrounded by trees and a few deer, grazing peacefully along it's shores.

Intrigued by the painted mural, Sandra felt slightly moved. She thanked God for the mural and whispered a prayer. In doing so, a verse came to her mind; "13) Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:13-14 NIV.

After a moment or two, Sandra turned to go. The painting stayed with her, as she drove off down the street, to deliver the boxes and meet her Aunt and Uncle at their new home.




Now, I'm going to let you think about this for awhile, then if you're still stumped, I will give hints in the comment section, until someone figures it out. If you think you are smart enough to know the answer without hints, than pause a little and think about it before reading the comments. The answer will be in the comments eventually.