THE BLANK CANVAS

Have you noticed that God often gifts us with truths wrapped in packages that we can intimately understand? He did the same with his disciples as he spoke to them in parables common to their own lives at the time.

Artistic creativity is definitely a package I love to open! Writing, sketching, painting and crafting are just the beginning.

As I sat down to draw a picture recently I stared at the blank sheet of paper. I imagine what I'll draw and I'm excited. I want it to be so beautiful. My pencil makes contact and I try hard to make it as pretty as what I've set out for it to be. But before long I've made a mistake. I keep going certain I can correct my error. One mistake...one wrong mark soon becomes two and the next thing I know I've ruined the entire drawing. It looks nothing like what I had pictured in my mind. Disgusted with myself I rip the sheet from the pad, wad it into a ball and throw it away.

📷

As a wife and as a mother I feel like that artist. I was given a blank canvas and I was so elated to create my masterpiece but I feel like I've ruined it.

So many mistakes. So many wrong marks.

What I forgot is that the entire time I drew, an eraser was right beside me. That eraser would have taken out those mistakes and made my canvas blank again if necessary. I forgot that I could draw right over top of it and make some new marks. It wasn't too late.

Perhaps even my eraser marks would've added depth and character my piece wouldn't otherwise have had.

In Christ, as a wife or a husband...as a mother or a father...as a friend or an enemy...as a son or a daughter...as a sister or brother, we have an eraser too.

It is deep red, blood stained and it can erase even the darkest of marks.

Each day we draw upon our canvas. To us it may look ugly. Have you ever seen Bob Ross begin a painting? How often I've watched him begin and can't imagine anything good much less beautiful will come from it. But slowly, as he builds layer upon layer, as he patiently and carefully marks upon his painting you can see it beginning to take shape. We have the ability to see what he is doing from a distance. We see the whole picture in our view and it gives us a great advantage. We have perspective. Somewhere along the way those ugly marks became something beautiful.

The painting...the drawing of our lives happens daily but the masterpiece takes a lifetime to create.

Let us never stop painting. Never stop drawing and when we mess up lets not forget our precious eraser is right beside us.

And, we are never beyond repair.