Yet again, I was trying to write one blog and this is what happened instead.
We have had an insanely busy week of ministry – not that we’ve been working nonstop, but we are never home. Per the schedule (which of course, was not strictly followed), we left the house at 9 a.m. and arrived back at 10 p.m. That leaves us with big chunks of free time in the middle of the day while we’re at the church. So we’ve brought Bibles, journals, music, and UNO cards to pass the time.
Given this week, on our first off-day yesterday we soaked up the rest. So much so that my long to-do list of things I could get done with a whole day at home…didn’t get done in the slightest.
I was trying to write a blog off and on during the day, but the words just wouldn’t get out of my head and onto the page (or screen). All day long, the thing I most wanted to do was get back in bed.
So this ennui found me at around 9 o’clock last night with my coloring book and colored pencils. (Purchased in Malaysia at the 2 Ringgit Store – AKA the 50 cents store.) My daily goal for this month has been to meditate every day, with some of my meditation spots being my bed, a bus seat, and a sanctuary with all my teammates around. I figured coloring would be a good way to get my brain to focus on meditation.
As I started coloring a picture of a door halfway hidden in ivy, I first thought of Adam and Eve, of Pandora’s box. So many myths and stories have humans opening what they shouldn’t, eating what they shouldn’t, going where they shouldn’t. We are fascinatingly predictable in that regard.
But then, instead of focusing on human failures, my mind took a different track. I pictured God coloring – drawing, really – a portrait of me as I sat coloring. I saw a whole gallery of paintings of all his children, started before they were even born.
Here, it gets a little literary. For those of you that had the pleasure (sort of) of reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in high school, you’ll remember that the man stays pure and beautiful while his portrait shows his decrepit and ugly soul.
I think God’s pictures of us do the opposite. As we go through life, ugly things happen to us. We get scars and break bones. We experience regret and pain. Our appearance changes. But God is waiting to cleanse our portraits of all these things. He wants to wash our souls clean, leaving only the pure, beautiful souls evident in our paintings.
He wants our souls to reflect not our mistakes, but our value in being beloved children of God.
Will you let him retouch your painting?
