The sky canvas was a bowl of melted vanilla ice cream today. Father Sky kept the clouds tightly bound together, hard to make out the different colors swirled together but when I stared at the clouds for a few moments I could see gray and white and a faint purple, a little chocolate syrup mixed with some blueberry syrup. The breeze pinged my wind chimes’ pipes softly, accenting the songbirds’ choir rehearsal. The organ wind chimes across the street played serenely all afternoon, beckoning us into nature’s cathedral. Not many songbirds on the feeders but I hear their music.

Well, I’ve enjoyed the overcast sky for days but now I’m ready for a deep blue sky canvas, bright yellow sunshine, fluffy white clouds. It’s cold today. I love a cold Christmas. Once when I was young Santa Claus brought me a new bicycle and Christmas day was in the seventies, not very exciting to ride a new bike in the warmth in December. I wanted to bundle up in the cold, proudly braving the weather, pink cheeked, riding on my new bike. Bitter cold forecasted for next weekend. Guess our gas guzzling furnaces will be happy.

Been thinking about this quote I read yesterday. Piper Payne wrote, “There is something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that is so so simple and breathtakingly pure. It’s the paint that changes its meaning and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same but in the end they are all uniquely different.” I love that quote. I always think of the sky as a canopy of canvas that Father Sky colors with his pastels. I think of the sunset as a canvas for Mother Nature’s watercolors. I think of our lives as blank canvases, clean and simple, till God applies the colors of paint that match our life experiences. The power of the paint brushes rests in his hands. Every day gives us a blank canvas, a chance to create another work of art.

We’re born a blank canvas and we’re the artists choosing colors, painting our life experiences, creating the canvases of our lives with God’s tutoring. We’re all uniquely different and that’s the beauty of life. Our actions and our attitudes influence God’s paint brushes. We can clean our brushes and begin anew when we turn to God for clarity. We suffer trials and tribulations making us strong and wise, the deep dark colors of difficulties brightening on our canvas with God’s holy light. Romans 5:3-4 says, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”

God paints the blank canvas of our lives creating a unique masterpiece in the colors of his beautiful sunsets, adding shades of his grace and wisdom as examples to teach us how we should treat others. Our prayers give us courage to face our fears, to weather our sorrows, offering us peace when we pray and place our worries in his outstretched hands.

Our lives are a blank canvas but through God’s love, our colors shine like the beautiful shades of Mother Nature’s sunset paintings.

“Life is a canvas, a blank slate, awaiting the brushstrokes of our fate, a masterpiece in the making, with every brushstroke worth taking. — samir25