If you’re like me, you did at least one paint-by-number picture when you were growing up. I remember looking at those teeny-tiny cups of paint and this fairly good sized canvas and thinking there was no way I’d have enough. The brush they gave you was woefully inadequate…a cheap plastic thing with loose hairs that painted a swath way too big for those tiny spaces. I usually resorted to using toothpicks to try to fill in the blanks and gave up long before the painting was completed. The whole concept seemed so artificial…as if it were somehow possible to create a Rembrandt-esque masterpiece by filling in the blanks.

Grief is paint-by-numbers…only backwards. You had this beautiful painting that was your life, and death erased all the vibrant colors. And the more time passes, the more blank spots you notice. The more blank spots you notice, the less like your life it looks. There’s no numbers in those blank spots either.

It isn’t easy to get the colors back in your life. It takes time. It takes a lot of hard work. And it takes a lot of paint. Buckets and buckets of paint. But, here’s the bottom line. This is where we get lost sometimes. Are you ready?

***Your new picture isn’t going to look like the old one.***

It’s just not. You can try to put that paint back in just like before, but the numbers are gone. The paint is different. I know…it isn’t easy. I know…it sucks. It really, really sucks. But, it’s what IS, you know? We cannot turn back the hands of time and make like it didn’t happen. We have to…no matter HOW hard it is….we HAVE to paint a new canvas. Forget those teeny-tiny spaces. Be bold! Be abstract! Be brave! Splash that paint on life’s canvas like there’s no tomorrow! Because…there might not be. Life’s too short.
Color your world.

❤️

“In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley of acacias.”

Joel 3:18 NIV