I am not an artist.  I don’t have the gift that so many do, able to draw with resemblance anything other than a stick figure — and that’s on a good day. Pictures come to me shrouded in words, and from there, I strive to depict what swirls around in my head.  But oh, how I admire the talent of others who can visually create with such ease!

Such are the differences that God has put inside each of us.  We are all endowed with something special.  All of us.  We all have an aptitude that comes naturally; no matter how small, it sets us apart.

When we have been through a life storm, it is easy to question who we are.  We get knocked around a bit, tossed in a sea of uncertainty.  We listen too easily to the voices inside our heads that cause us to discount our gifts.  We don’t see ourselves accurately and, adding to it our failures and our shortcomings, we skew the composite of our worth.

This is so damaging.

I know for me, when life got turned upside down, I spent so much time sorting through the rubble, trying to find the pieces of who I was.  It felt as if a dump truck had backed up to my front doorstep, leaving a pile of remnants of what I once thought I was.  It was overwhelming and discouraging.  Essentially, all I saw was what was wrong, and the image I held of myself was of worthlessness. 

That’s the thing about life transitions that hurt us the most.  We feel adrift.  We think we no longer resemble the pictures of the person we were.  We are without shape or form or color.  

I am coming to understand that God can’t show us the picture he has for us, for our futures, without first doing a little housekeeping.  At times, He needs to shake us up in order to sweep away what is not working, what does not fit anymore with what He is doing for us.  

Transitions are hard. They cause us to cling to what we think we want our lives to look like, when God wants to paint for us a new vision.   We squeeze our eyes shut, not wanting to contemplate a new tomorrow, because we still mourn yesterday.

That’s okay.  God knows this.  It’s a part of the process.

In our transitions, we are emptied so that we come to rely on God to show us what we cannot yet see for ourselves.  He readies for us a new canvas that is colored with possibilities, purpose, and awakenings we have perhaps never thought possible.  

When we allow Him to guide us, as painful as it is, we grow. We transform. We are given new colors to paint our new tomorrows, and they are vibrant and alive.

None of this happens overnight.  It takes time for Him to uncover for us the gifts that we perhaps forgot we had, the yearnings we have neglected, the promises He planted long ago.  It takes time to sort through the rubble we are forced to have to go through.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do have faith.  I know that God supplements all that I cannot do on my own.  He places the paint brush in my hand, and reveals the image of what He is doing through the daily steps I take.  By His changing me, He changes my ability to see that He has more for me than I can imagine, and it is good.

Trusting Him, walking by faith and not by sight, is the way we proceed with confidence in these difficult times. 

May the substance of your faith hold you close.  He has you, He knows you, and He is creating for you a new and beautiful picture of what is to come.

Trust that the colors or your tomorrows are bright.  That’s what God wants for us all.

No matter what you may feel or see about your life in the present, never forget that God is at work and creating all things new.

You are a masterpiece.