We were handed a blank canvas the day our Joshua was suddenly and unexpectedly taken from us. No matter how much we stared at it or desperately tried changing it back to its original, it stayed blank….no changes, no color, no different picture….nothing at all for the longest time…just blank and empty like we were. We didn’t even want a new picture. We so longed for our old, beautiful picture back. Our picture contained brush strokes that weren’t perfect or precisely smooth, but they were created and made with pure love and colorful memories…our memories. The custom original that was painted with extraordinary beauty and took many years to create, was priceless. And it was forever destroyed and gone.
Everything changed, not knowing what anything in life would ever look like or how anything in life could ever become colorful or beautiful again. And we knew for our blank canvas to become a picture that would never look or feel the same again, we had to trust God to put His colors on it whenever and however He chose. We had to trust our canvas of a blank nothing to become a new masterpiece. We had to trust God – the master artist who holds the brush – that He could, stroke by stroke, create a new and beautiful picture again.
We had to get up from the artists chair to let God paint our new life picture. One day we noticed tiny little specs of random mixes of color splattered on the canvas, still looking like a big mess! So many times we would question God, wondering what He was doing; if He was getting it right; and why the canvas looked explosively messy because the blobs on it were still very dark. It was a mess we wanted to walk away from but couldn’t. But with time, and more time, each new little blob and splatters of color are working together to create a new picture. There is still blank space stretching across the canvas, but God is creating a new picture through each added color. Our new picture, one that is coming about from much heartbreak and countless tears, will take time to become beautiful again. It truthfully will take a lifetime again. And that lifetime seems okay, because our lifetime on earth isn’t forever. Forever is with our family all being together in Heaven…and we can’t wait to meet Josh and Gracie there, along with other loved ones.
Until then, we keep watching God slowly paint and create our new, beautiful picture as we walk out His purpose in our lives…believing that as our old life is undesirably gone…a new one we are seeing with a little more certainty; a little more promise; and a little more hope; all from God’s mixing of intentional colors because He knows perfectly where and when each color needs to fall into place on our canvas.
If you find yourself looking at a blank canvas from life hitting hard…I know a perfect artist who would love to paint your blank canvas…knowing right where to put each color; knowing what colors to mix together; and when to use them…creating for you too, in His timing, a new and beautiful picture again.
In this life together…
Hugs, Love & Blessings ~ Audrey