Out of the Canvas

 

I’ve mentioned the paint-by-number I was given for my birthday last year. Now, on the eve of my next birthday (where did that year go, then???), I can report that I have finished it.

It’s been fun to see what looked like a tangled web of lines become recognisable tiny human beings, riding tricycles in the back yard of the home I grew up in.

I had to pay attention to the detail. Some of the spaces were so tiny the corresponding number was unreadable. Many of the colours were very nuanced gradations of tone, and it would have been easy to mix them up and end up with a different picture.

The paint pots are not numbered individually; rather, they are wedged into a cardboard palette on which the numbers appear. Carelessness could have resulted in disaster if I’d removed more than one pot at a time, and then mixed them up in putting them back.

I’ve been wondering if God has designed life like a paint-by-number. He’s created each of us, outlined us in the most intimate and tiny details. But as we grow, as we make choices, we choose the colours which create the light and shade, which distinguish and identify us. Personalities and passions emerge. Mhairi and Jamie, riding their trikes out of the canvas into my living room, have been making choices since they were born, and those choices have coloured who they are today. What amazing choices they have made: brave, creative, compassionate and loving choices.

I look at that painting and see my oldest two playing as innocent children. I couldn’t be prouder of the people they are because of the choices they have made, painting them in colours of love and generosity, of faith and trust, of hope and peace.

A mother’s is a privileged job. We see the canvas and imagine the possibilities, provide the paint pots and encourage faith. Then we sit back and watch the human beings grow in grace and truth.