Give me a box of crayons and a coloring sheet and my mind will start racing towards perfection. I don’t have a finished picture in my head yet; only that it should be perfect. First thing, I’ll want to find the best workspace I can find. Then I will survey my craft supplies: How many choices of crayons do I have? What type of paper is the drawing on? Do I like the picture I’ll be coloring? Then painstakingly, I will begin choosing colors for my project starting with the obvious colors such as peach skin or green grass. All the time I have a perfect picture developing in my imagination. As I fill in the sections of the drawing I am careful to outline them first in an effort to stay inside the lines with each color...never want to color outside the lines or accidentally get a little peach color on the blue sky. My picture is finished now and I survey it for flaws. No matter how careful I have been I will find them. I have a nice picture for others to see but the flaws prevent me from fully enjoying the finished work. My joy depends on my ability to plan, prepare and perfect. I received some joy from the task but as I look over at my daughter who was given the same box of crayons and coloring sheet I see perfect joy! Why?Give Savannah some crayons and a coloring sheet and the only question she’ll ask you is: “Do you have a prettier picture?” Immediately she will pour the crayons out on the floor, table or whatever space she has and begin coloring. She knows that the skin is peach colored but she may just wait until she colors in the outfit before she colors the skin. She draws some clouds in the blank sky using a blue crayon. There’s a lot of grass to color in so she turns her sheet in all four directions trying to get it all...vertical and horizontal lines – it's all green. She gets outside of the grass area into the sky area but that’s OK...she can put a flower in that spot or maybe the grass has not been cut lately and it’s a little tall in that part of the yard. By the way she never colored hat sky blue. She chooses yellow for the hair color. Now it’s time to color in the blouse and skirt (of course it’s a little girl that she chooses to color). She likes pink for the blouse and starts filling in the outline. She managed to stay inside the lines for the most part but there are a few jagged edges that she never seems to notice. The skirt will be a pretty blue color. With great excitement she works quickly to finish the project and but she merges some of the blue color into the blouse area accidentally. Is it ruined? Apparently not, quickly she uses the blue to recolor the pink area and now the outfit is a pretty lavender and blue. She colors in a few pieces of jewelry and her masterpiece is finished! Look mom! Quickly she picks up a blank sheet of paper to exercise her new found talent of mixing colors. No planning, she simply tries them all. No finished product in her mind she is simply enjoying herself. After a while she gets called away to something else and quickly leaves her workspace with no thought of whether or not she will return. She’s had fun but she will not depend on that single joy to sustain her. She’s expecting more joy ahead and she usually finds it in all that she encounters.
My picture is complete and it’s a nice picture but I missed out on the joy that I could have had. A few days ago, Savannah’s dad teased her by saying, “You realize that you are becoming your mother, don’t you?” She replies, “Scary, huh?” Yes, she has some of my characteristics and even some of my habits but by the grace of God she will never become her Mama but I would not mind being more like my daughter. Isaiah 29:19 tells us, “The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD.”
