I love coming home and beginning a new project! Painting is one of the things that truly makes my soul happy. I have had the best conversations with friends when we just sit around and paint. For some people it's sitting across the table, sharing a meal. For others it is playing a sport and being active. When I'm painting, I feel like I can really let distractions fall away and let myself be in the moment. For me, that's the best time to communicate with myself, with God, with friends.

I remember, in my high school art class, laughing so hard with my friends or having deep conversations all while we painted. I've made some of my deepest friendships by getting together to paint and craft. My high school going away party was even a painting party. In college, I sold my paintings to girls in my sorority and got in touch with some that I never would have become close with otherwise. I love to paint and, thankfully, it has brought great things into my life.

Beauty in the Blemishes

One of the best parts of painting has been the lessons I've learned. Just like a sport teaches you how to work with others, to be a humble winner and not a sore loser, painting has taught me at least one very big life lesson too.

When I mess up a painting, and I definitely WILL mess up whatever I'm working on, there's a moment where I just want to quit. I did it again! This will never look like I intended it to look now, everyone will notice my mistake, I better trash this right now and start over. But you know what? Every painting that I've ever messed up, no one notices. No one else sees the blemish. And here's why:

Here's the Trick:

It's not a blemish at all. Because by the time I'm done, I have completely incorporated it into the painting. I've painted over it, under, and around it. The mark or drip or smear that I thought would be the ultimate RUIN of my painting usually ends up being the ultimate uniqueness.

The Take Away:

What a nod to what God, the master artist, does with our blemished lives! Those things about yourself that you find "imperfect", He can take them and make them your ultimate beauty. Those things that you are doing wrong (sin), He completely covers with His son Jesus.

But only if you realize that He hasn't given up, he's not going to trash you and start over, he's not saying "she'll never be what I intended now!" God's not like me. Instead, he sees your so called blemish and incorporates it anyway to give you the most extraordinary uniqueness. He gently and lovingly turns that blemish into something beautiful and completely His own.

He made a way out for sin. Jesus lived a perfect life, died, rose again, and offers that perfection to you and me. When you live with Jesus and Jesus lives with you, God sees a perfect painting, without blemish, without mistakes, he doesn't even see covered-up mistakes. He sees Jesus' perfect life instead of yours.

If you've never let Jesus in before, He's listening right now and He's ready to live with you everyday. Ask him into your life, you can say it however you like.

This is what Jesus says:

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." Revelation 3:20

Ask Him to come into your life and do something with it, to turn it into the masterpiece He's been calling you to be.

"I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:14 • I heard this verse enter my thoughts and I prayed it back to My creator " Thank you that I am beautifully and wonderfully made." I may have gotten the words a little bit wrong, but I think God needed to tell me that too. I am beautiful because I am His wonderful work. And YOU are too!

Thanks for stopping by!

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