I love coloring.
When I was a little girl. I spent a lot of time with coloring books. My favorites were always the Precious Moments Coloring Books.
Though I have absolutely no artistic talent, I found so much joy in watching the colors come together to create beautiful pictures, or what I called masterpieces.
I still try to “color” each day. Only now I digitally color. Electronic color by numbers.
I don’t have to worry about the mess of the supplies or gripping colored pencils with hands that don’t work quite like they did when I was a little girl. The best part though… someone with artistic talent creates the pictures with a full range of colors to create what really are masterpieces, especially compared to what I could create with my limited artistic knowledge.
Here’s the deal though. Without fail, every single day as I color in the picture, I always question and doubt the artist. Never trusting how the process is going and always believing it will look horrible in the end.
Usually it goes something like this:
- Have you ever seen a dog before?
- Have you ever seen a real strawberry before?
- Um, really… you’re telling me that is going to be skin?
I could go on and on.
I struggle to believe the steps they are taking me through will create a beautiful picture.
Then I get to the end and wham….
It all changes:
- Wow, I never knew those colors could work together.
- Oh my gosh, look at how real that shading looks.
- I can see why I am not an artist. They are genius.
- It is majestic. So much better than I could have imagined.
And so on and so on.
Sometimes I wish I could see what the picture will look like before I color it. It would be a lot easier to trust each color I put in, knowing how it will come together in the end.
How often as I go through life do I make the same mistake with God? The ultimate Artist…Creator.
God has promised that if I follow His counsel, he will grant me a beautiful masterpiece. A life of peace, joy, love, and many other covenanted promises that will bless me in this life and the life to come.
In my mind, I know what that masterpiece looks like. Happiness, success, family…things going my way.
Only, I often find myself confused by the “colors” before me. Like coloring with some weird color, I doubt could ever make a cat look real. Sometimes I face unexpected trials or stumbling blocks and I have no idea how they could create my promised masterpiece. Health problems, financial problems, shattered dreams, or an array of other challenges.
Questions might pop up:
- Is this really how my life should go?
- How could this ever make me happy?
- God… do you know what you are doing?
I cannot always see where God is taking me. I cannot see what the final picture is going to look like.
It can be so difficult to trust the process.
But I can! We all can!
We have the ultimate Artist and Creator guiding our life. He knows exactly the right places we need. The exact amount of light and darkness. He knows everything we need for the perfect masterpiece.
There might be times of doubt when the colors of our life don’t look like we imagined them to, but we can turn to our Father with trust that He is knowingly putting everything in the right place to guide us to our final masterpiece.
I might not know what my full “picture” or your full “picture” will look like in the end. But I can guarantee that it will be majestic. Our minds will be blown away by how different things work together for our good. That our masterpieces will be so much greater than our minds could ever imagine.
Doctrine & Covenants 58: 3-4
3. Ye cannot behold with your eyes, for this present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come here-after, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.
4. For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.
