(I know I just wrote this yesterday, but it kept going through my mind today and I needed to add a few things. It didn’t feel finished.  It still might not be…:-))

She stood in front of the blank canvas completely overwhelmed.  So many things in her head, her heart.  But how would she express them?  Every color in the rainbow and then some lay before her.  Vivid greens, deep blues, vibrant reds, bright yellows, warm browns, rich purples, luscious oranges.  In contrast there were also the vast array of pastels.  Soft pinks, pale yellows, light blues, gentle greens.  Each beautiful in its own way.  Each with a story of its own.

She thought back on her life…on all that He had done for her.  She had to display it. To show others a picture of His great love.  Words were not enough to express it fully.  She felt completely ill equipped and yet completely compelled.  And so she began…

She took the smallest brush and dipped it gently into the softest pink on the palette.  This was His love for her as a little girl.  Sweet and tender.  The brush glided easily across the no longer blank canvas.  Waves and swirls free and untouched.  Simple and carefree. A celebration of innocence and childhood bliss.  He danced and skipped and climbed trees with her with His soft pink love.

Next she took a painter’s sponge and dabbed at the brightest yellow.  This color just seemed to smile. This was His love in her teen years.  Random and playful.  Unpredictable. She blotted big spots on the canvas, happy, balloon like shapes representing His out of the box love for her. Not reckless, but fully wild and without abandon.  He had dreamed and believed in her future with her with His bright yellow love.

The yellow and pink bled together in places, mixing into a delicious orange. All the places throughout her life that had been marked by fun and laughter.  She used her fingers to blend the two colors into one in different places on the canvas. Sweetness mixed with happy.  Not overbearing or outweighing each other, but intermingled throughout.  A picture of the fun they had together all through life as He loved her with His delicious orange love.

She picked up a larger brush and drenched it in the warm brown paint.   The love that he showed her through her family, when her children were born, when traditions were created, when beautiful conversations emerged.  She brushed sweeping strokes across the canvas, touching each of the colors already there, and all of the colors yet to come.  This was His foundational, familial love. She was, after all, His child.  It represented every hug, every mmmmmm, every loving thought or action that He gave her through others with His warm, brown love.

She knew what was next.  She smiled as she went and plunged her entire hand into the next color.  The vibrant red.  Her hand coated and dripping with paint, she moved toward the canvas and with a strong flick of the wrist, splattered the paint all over.  She repeated this again and again and again, little flecks making their mark on both the white and the colored portions.  This respresented passion.  The passion that He felt for her and the passion that He put in her heart for others.  She guessed that red was the best choice for this because it was as if love bled from the heart, bursting vividly on those it touched. Every time her heart would shout with sheer joy or cry out in unbearable pain, He would love her with His vibrant red love.

But there were times of deep sorrow, too.  Times of darkness and death and grief. Times of regret.  Ebony black times.  And so, with the tiniest end of the tiniest brush, she took the night black paint and placed a dot in the very middle of the colorful design.  An intense, poignant dot.  A dot that did not take away from the beauty of the canvas and each color, but somehow made it more beautiful.  More meaningful. And though His love could never be black, His love carried her through those ebony black times. 

More colors followed and became images of water and trees.   Blues and greens, some light and some bold, signifying the many and varied times that he had shown His love to her through miracles in her own life.  And the miracles that He so graciously allowed her to witness in other people’s lives.  And she was amazed at how many times those miracles overlapped and the blues and greens would become gorgeous mixes of teal and turquoise. The greens and blues of His love growing and refreshing all around her.

Any colors that came next could not be described – they were too beautiful for human words. A representation of  His love shown through the indescribable traits of grace, forgiveness and mercy. She placed each finger into one of the mysterious colors and lightly touched the canvas, and as if playing a piano, fluttered her fingers over the entire picture.  And as these nameless colors touched the more ordinary colors, their appearance changed.  Every color became luminous, glorious.  He had always loved her with these nameless colors and used them to bring light and depth to her life.

She looked down at herself.  Her hands, her nose, her hair, her clothes, all blotched with every color.  She was covered with His love. And she stood back and looked at the masterpiece that was His love for her.  And still, the colors were not enough.  The images falling short.  His love was every color, known and unknown, and so much more.  And though she would never be able to capture and portray it all, she would spend the rest of her life trying.